


Ex Libris

by zsuzsi (harrycrewe)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-01
Updated: 2010-01-01
Packaged: 2018-01-06 20:41:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 24,732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1111295
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/harrycrewe/pseuds/zsuzsi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry's a Quidditch player who runs across Draco working in a quiet bookshop on the end of Diagon Alley. A low-key, no-fuss romance.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ex Libris

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on ff.net in 2010.

As an albeit reluctant lifelong celebrity, Harry had a great deal of familiarity with glamours, both of the type designed to attract and to disguise. For instance, he was well aware, though he had never been rude enough to let on, which of his Puddlemere teammates used them, both on and off the pitch. Ollie did not, though he was the most popular; Chesley Greenwold and Angelina both occasionally gave in to the temptation, particularly during high-profile matches. This was not strictly permitted by the league, and could have earned them an infraction, but it was innocent enough, as the glamours was always of the sort designed to subtly augment personal appearance, rather than cause any distraction. Chesley Greenwold was a rather good-looking brunette who had had a short run as the idol of the team before Ollie joined, and it had been rather hard for him to give up being in the limelight: his glamours tended towards hiding the occasional spot, or adding a bit of sparkle when he first flew out over the pitch. As for Angelina, she was an attractive girl who wanted desperately to get married, but hadn't so far even been able to keep a steady boyfriend. Why Harry suspected that this was more due to the difficulties of dating a celebrity who would always be on the road than to her beater-toned biceps, which were nearly as wide around as Harry's own, Angelina _would_ persist in at least trying to narrow the appearance of them. 

That was why, on Saturday afternoon, after a meeting with George and Ron at Wheezes, and strolling down Diagon Alley considering his options for the afternoon - should he should be practical, visit the bank and attempt to sort various errands, or just enjoy the few hours until Neville and Hannah's dinner? - he noticed with curiosity a shop fully equipped with all the wrong sort of glamours. 

The standard on the Alley was of inducements to enter. There were spells to brighten the windows, charms that sent a pleasant little tingly rush over anyone who stopped within a few meters of the doorway. There were aerosolized potions to lift the mood, charms to open the pocket-book, glamours to make a shop seem bigger and airier and more appealing than it actually was. 

This shop had none of those. In fact, had Harry not already so much experience in trying to draw attention away from himself, he would never have noticed it at all. Probably ninety percent of the witches and wizards passing by did not. As it was, however, the quality of the solid charmwork that had gone into making the shop unnoticeable actually had the unintended effect of attracting Harry. It was a higher-class cousin of the sort of magic frequently seen on Knockturn, around those shops whose business was only semi-legitimate, although it did not appear to be accompanied by the sort of mild stinging hexes and other more forthright encouragements to bugger off that those shops also frequently had. 

Harry had only that morning had yet another conversation with Ron about whether or not it was time for them to pack in the short-term work (Wheezes for Ron, Puddlemere for Harry) and sit for the Auror's examinations in the fall, and he felt uncomfortably conscious of that as he altered course to amble closer to the un-welcoming little shop. It was nothing to do with believing it might be a criminal establishment, he told himself firmly. He was only curious. 

It was built into what had once been a basement, half buried beneath the road. Slippery black steps led down to the entrance. There was one dirty dark window at street level that gave no hint of what might be inside. The door had once long ago been painted an avocado color, which was now flaking off. When he put his hand to the handle, a prickly unpleasant feeling went up his spine. 

And so, it was with faint surprise that, upon stepping over the threshold, he felt the prickling disappear, and found himself in a warm and pleasant room. 

It was a bookshop. 

A spacious and pleasant bookshop: the carpet beneath his feet, though it appeared ancient, was a soft deep blend of grays and blues. It set off the dark golden grain of old bookshelves and the plaster walls. The light from above was a comfortable afternoon sunlight, a trick of magic that Harry much preferred to muggle fluorescent bulbs. Between the shelves and the counter was a pair of wrought iron tables and comfortable chairs: a good place to pause and take a coffee while perusing your latest purchases, if Harry was any judge of the very modern, muggle espresso maker sitting behind the counter. 

The room appeared empty. Shrugging mentally, Harry walked over to the nearest bookshelf and allowed his eyes to wander over the spines. He wasn't much of a reader, and for a moment he didn't recognize any of the titles. Some were wizard books, to be sure, but others appeared muggle. They all looked old, and they were jumbled together, with no sense or order to their organization that he could make out. After a moment his eye alighted on the word 'Quidditch', and he pulled a slim volume from the shelf. 

It was a faded green book, and the binding was so cracked that Harry could not make out any of the other words on the spine. Despite that seeming delicacy, it felt comfortable and solid in his hands, and he opened it curiously. _My Life in Quidditch_ , the title read simply, by _Willington Whaflington_. 

He had to cast his mind back for a moment, before recollecting that Willington Wharflington had been one of the great players of the 1920s. This, then, was his autobiography. The frontispiece was a photo of Wharflington, in old-fashioned quidditch robes, smiling a trifle awkwardly as he waved to Harry. He was already elderly in the photo. That he must have gotten decked out in his old gear specifically to have that photo taken for his book touched Harry oddly. 

The date below the frontispiece read '1966'. He had been in his seventies or so when he had the pictures taken, then, and had died a little more than a decade later: still young for a wizard. Harry vaguely remembered reading that he had died on Diagon Alley, smothered in a fire started by Death Eaters during the first Voldemort war. 

The sound of soft footsteps and a smooth, though dryly stated, "May I help you?" broke Harry's concentration. He looked up, expecting to see a shopkeeper, only to find himself staring instead into the cool gray eyes of Draco Malfoy.  

  


From the surprise on Malfoy's face, he had not expected to see Harry either. Harry saw the quick widening of eyes, and then, in a moment, Malfoy had schooled his features into blandness. 

"Potter," he said. "What can I do for you?" 

Harry, while quick on his feet in an emergency, had never been quite so quick with words. He sputtered, and caught Malfoy's very slight smile at his sputtering. It had been a contest, apparently, to see who would recover first, and by the time Harry had realized that he had already lost. 

"You work in a book shop?" he asked stupidly. 

Malfoy did not answer, but only smirked expressively, clearly implying, 'of course I do, you blithering idiot.' He was carrying a small carton of books to shelve. 

His hair had been cut short since the last time Harry had seen him. It wasn't more than two short, spiky centimeters long: similar to the cuts Molly Weasley, who never had much luck with hair-cutting rhymes, used to give her boys, her husband, and even a few times to Harry, back in the days when money was short. Harry ran his hand through his own locks, these days artfully tousled, instead of just messy, on the Rue du Chaudron. Good hair was one of those things that, as a public figure, he'd eventually found it took less energy to give in on than it did to baulk: privately, he would also admit that he liked the effect it had on some men. 

Malfoy's hair, however, was unquestionably bad, and it called attention to the fact that he seemed to have grown paler, skinnier and pointier than he'd been in school. Men were meant to fill out with age, not grow gawkier. His wrists stuck out several inches past what they should on a robe that might once have been expensive, but was now worn soft and gray. What Harry found subtly irritating, however, was that despite all this Malfoy was still carrying himself like a Little Lord Fauntleroy: was looking at Harry, in fact, with a chilly, disdainful expression. 

But at that moment his train of thought was diverted by the realization that Malfoy was clinging onto his box so hard that his knuckles were white. Harry stared. On closer inspection, Malfoy's right hand was trembling fractionally. He looked back up into Malfoy's face, and a look of understanding passed between them. Malfoy knew that Harry had seen the tremor. Unexpectedly, he slammed his carton of books down, took a few long strides across the room until he was behind the counter, and gestured impatiently. 

"Give me the book," he said, "The book, the book!" when Harry hesitated. 

Trailing behind him, Harry handed over reluctantly the volume of Wharflington still in his hand, and watched bemusedly as Malfoy turn to the back page, where a spidery pencil line had scrawled the price of the volume. 

"Twelve galleons", Malfoy said, and stuck his hand out to receive the sum. Harry hadn't exactly been thinking of buying the book, and twelve galleons seemed very high, but he thought he would be kicked out in another minute regardless, and he decided he'd rather leave with than without it. So he shuffled in the pockets of his robes until he pulled appropriate sum. 

Malfoy used a quill to enter the amount into an enormous accounts-book, ripped off a receipt, and thrust that back to Harry, tucked into the volume. He had managed to arrange it so that he only had to hand something to Harry once, the book and the receipt together, as if to minimize as much as possible the contact between them. 

Slipping the book into his robe pocket, Harry looked Malfoy over again. He was glaring at Harry still, although he looked as awkward as a shaved kitten with all that bad hair. Harry could not guess exactly what was passing through his mind, but he guessed that there might be mortification. For a moment he wanted to say something, but he did not know what. 

He sighed, and turned to face again the afternoon crowds.

  


Neville and Hannah's evening dinner party was still a while off, the afternoon sun was warm and glowy, and Harry wanted a moment to unwind: the apparent tension in Malfoy's body must have gotten to him, he felt just as tightly strung. So he wandered down the street until he happened to find Thropfee's Tearoom, and there happened to be an outside table open. He allowed a waiter to lead him to it, and after ordering an Americano, took out _My Life in Quidditch_ again. First he opened back to the frontispiece, and tried to engage Mr. Wharflington's image in conversation. But apparently the magics were not strong enough and the photo was of the limited sort that didn't allow for sound, or was too shy to make the effort. Since Wharflington moved uncertainly in and out of his frame, seemed to have great range of expression and peered back interestedly in Harry, Harry guessed that it might be the second. Wharflington behaved, Harry thought, like an older Neville Longbottom - but he quickly choked the idea back, it was unfair, since Neville had changed a lot since school, and hardly ever dithered anymore. 

After a quick flip through the rest of the pages to establish that there were no other pictures or interesting diagrams, Harry opened to the first chapter. Instead of reading, though, he found his mind back on Malfoy at the bookshop. 

The last time he had seen him had been at the NEWT exams two years earlier. They had been scheduled six months later than usual, and the time leading up to them had been spent, by Harry and all the others who hadn't seen the inside of Hogwarts during seventh year, in furious revision. Actually, because the quality of teaching during seventh year had sunk so low, even those who had stayed had had to study pretty hard. Most students had spent that period at Hogwarts, in what was jokingly called their 'eighth year', but a few of the students - most of the Slytherins - had found private tutors and worked from home instead. 

Somehow Harry had missed Malfoy a little, during that time: missed his sneering face across the potions classroom, and the way Harry had had to watch out for stray ankles when he strayed too close to the Slytherin side. He followed the trials of Lucius and Narcissa, both of which ended badly. He imagined, once or twice, how a conversation between them might go if Malfoy were to appear before him, how much might be said, or remain unsaid, about those last terrible days and all that had passed between them. Still, he was as much relieved as reluctant when the opportunity never arose. 

He had not been thinking about Malfoy, though, on that first day of the NEWTS, and so, when he had entered the classroom and found him sitting in the back, with Parkinson and the other Slytherins - all looking as stone-faced and grim as if they expected another war - he had been surprised. He felt proud of the example set by himself, Neville, Ginny, Hermione, and Ron: everyone had treated the Slytherins politely, and offered no comment about their presence. He might have looked for a free moment in which to talk to Malfoy, but it never arose, he was avoided. Harry had respected that, and the week of exams had passed smoothly, until they had parted ways again, this time seemingly for good. 

After that, Harry never heard of Malfoy leaving Britain, as many of the other Slytherins did. He looked around for him, now and then, at the sort of public events where he might once have been expected to present himself. But Malfoy never appeared, and Harry soon became caught up in other things, and began to stop looking. 

  


A shadow falling across the unappreciated first page of Wharflington's autobiography caused Harry to look up. There was Rohde, standing over him and grinning. Harry blinked. For a moment, Rohde's dark golden hair had reminded him of Malfoy's paler color. 

"Hello," Harry said. Grabbing the cuff of Rohde's robe, he pulled him down for a kiss. Rohde had to bend over, but he didn't complain, instead sliding easily into the seat next to Harry's, without ever breaking the contact of their lips. His lips were as warm and supple as the sunlight, wonderful, and Harry tried to slip him some tongue. But, laughing, Rohde pushed him away. For a Frenchman, he had strict ideas about intimacy in public. 

Harry leaned back and looked at Rohde with satisfaction. He was gorgeous - a quarter veela - and while Rohde was embarrassed of that, Harry couldn't help but secretly spread it around, for he loved the little ripples of jealousy that came out when people found out he was seeing a veela. Well, not _seeing_ , per se, that would have been too strong a word: only they tended to seek each other out, when Harry was playing in Paris or Rohde was in England, and generally there was a lot of sex involved. Rohde had inherited the veela looks and, so Harry imagined, a bit of the allure, though little, it seemed, of the veela fidelity. He was fun, Harry was fun, and they had fun together, an arrangement that suited them both perfectly well. 

"I didn't know you were around," Harry said, "have you been shopping?" 

"Yes," Rohde grinned again, showing a row of perfect white teeth, "Christmas presents: a set of quills for my mother, and a locket for my sister." He displayed it for Harry: a simple golden O that, when opened, revealed a tiny mirror. "Eet will show you the face of anyone who loves you, only not a great deal of the face, only an eyebrow or a bit of the cheekbone. Enough so that you must look carefully for hours in order to discover the face of your admirer. Very good for a teenage girl, don't you think?" 

Harry laughed and squinted at the mirror. There was a bit of pale forehead… slowly the image rose to show some locks of curly hair. "Hermione", he said, and smiled. 

"Ah, you know 'er so well, that you recognized immediately" Rohde said, "the proof of an old, true friend." 

"If I keep trying, will I see you there?" Harry teased. 

Rohde looked alarmed, but then his features settled into something like regret. " 'Arry", he said. "I've been meaning to tell you - when I return to Paris, perhaps we can become again, how do you say, only friends?" 

Harry was surprised. "Of course." He wasn't going to ask why - their relationship had never been like that - but he saw, after taking the locket back from Harry, that Rohde looked into it for a long moment before returning it to his own pocket. Who did he saw there? Not Harry -which meant that perhaps in France he had finally found someone from whom he wanted more than a casual fling. "Congratulations", he said softly, looking at Rohde over his coffee cup. 

"Ah! Am I so transparent?" Rohde patted his pocket and sighed happily. "It is all very new, 'Arry." He looked down, smiling to himself, a perfect blond Adonis. "I 'ave yet to even pursuade him… but," he looked ruefully at Harry. "I am very 'appy." 

Harry sighed theatrically, and tucked his book into his robe pocket. "What can I do then, but withdraw gracefully from the field!" He joked. He looked at the man fondly, and searched his own mind for a feeling of loss. It was there -just a shade of it - and he felt very glad, for it would have disturbed him if Rohde, whom he liked very much, had meant nothing. As a boy he had given himself to everyone with such intensity, but these days, as an adult, he was coming to see that everyone came and went. "Good luck," he said, sincerely. 

Anyway, he was now almost late for Neville and Hannah's dinner. He kissed Rohde farewell - dryly on the cheek this time, as a gesture of friendship - and left smiling towards the Leaky. 

  


"It's the oddest thing," he told Hannah cheerfully, as she took his coat when he came into the little flat that she and Neville shared above the bar. "I've just been thrown over, but I'm in such a good mood about it!" 

"Oh really?" Several months ago, Harry had been amused to realize that Neville's Hannah, round and sweet, had a weakness for stories about his mercurial love life. Unlike Ron, whom even the mention of a boyfriend could make queasy, or Hermione, who tended to purse her lips disapprovingly when calculating exactly how many so-called 'boyfriends' Harry had had, Hannah seemed to genuinely enjoy just listening, and never disapproved. "It wasn't Jeremy, was it? You did say he was getting rather clingy." 

"No, Rohde - you know, François- he wasn't clingy at all, rather he's found someone else he's really serious about." He related the whole conversation to Hannah, who listened, appropriately intrigued. "

You say he's not even dating the man yet - but he already broke it off with you - doesn't sound like the man you described before." "No," Harry said, thoughtfully, "he seemed really..." he considered, "really excited, like a little kid." 

Hannah sighed. "How romantic." 

" What is?" Neville, coming from the kitchen, looped an arm around her waist and spun her around. She giggled with delight. "Friend of Harry's," she said. "Seems to have met someone. Oh Harry, do you think it's a veela thing?" She came to rest against Neville's chest, slightly flushed. 

"Perhaps", Harry said slyly. 

Neville gave them both a look. "Well, come on, then, hurry up," he said. "Everyone else is already in the dining room". Neville never spoke on the subject of Harry's love life, but Harry suspected that his opinion ran a bit towards that of Hermione - even that Neville was, perhaps, the least bit disappointed in him. It stung, a little, that his friends were unsupportive, and particularly it stung that Neville, who had once admired Harry, was now in a position to cast independent judgments on him. Really, it wasn't like Harry was a slut, he only wanted to enjoy himself a bit while he was still young. His circle of friends, in contrast, had largely settled themselves into stable relationships as quickly as possible. 

Clockwise around the table sat Ron and Hermione, Neville, Hannah, Dean and Lavender - since Harry never brought his boyfriends to close gatherings like this, he was the only unpaired body at the table yet again. Harry greeted them all warmly, and then let his eye drift over to the empty chair beside Ron. 

"You couldn't convince him to come out, then?" He asked. 

Ron shook his head, glumly. "He hardly leaves the shop, these days." On most days, George put on a good front, but his friends and family had learned to keep a close eye on his moods, which had been dangerously black for almost a year after Fred's death and even now sometimes slid backward in the same direction. "I hate to say it," Ron continued. "But he was a bit better when he was with Honoria". 

Harry frowned. None of them had liked Honoria Freslip, a pretty witch three year George's senior, whom everyone suspected of dating George only for his fame. Wheedling him to get invitations to fancy Ministry events and name-dropping for discounts when shopping had finally caused George to give her the boot. However, there was no denying that Honoria, social as she was, had done a better job than any of them had been able to with getting George out once in a while - which, in turn, seemed to keep his mind from turning too much in on itself. 

"I thought she was nice," Lavender said defensively. "She lent me a really nice pair of dragon's hide pumps once, and didn't even mind after I scuffed them in the floo." 

Everyone spent a moment politely pretending to think about that, although Ron and Harry shared a quick glance that meant, thank God Charlie wasn't there. 

"If only he would meet someone," Ron said, changing the subject. 

"But who?" Hermione asked. It was clearly a conversation they had had between them too many times already. "When he's in a mood like this, he scares them all away." 

"Bring someone to him," Neville suggested. Smiling, he took the large salad bowl that Hannah passed him and heaped the greens onto his plate, then paused to top everyone up on wine. "I mean, bring someone into the shop -a nice assistant or something, someone to brighten up the place." 

Ron looked interested, but Hermione frowned. "I don't know, what if something went wrong? He'd hate it if he thought we were meddling." Harry was inclined to agree, but his mind was less on the problem of George, which was after all well-covered ground, than on that afternoon: Rohde should have been the bigger event, but instead he was still preoccupied by Malfoy. Too-short hair and the short robes, they seemed wrong for him, what had happened? Had his time since the war been difficult? He couldn't remember ever hearing anything, but then the Malfoy name wasn't exactly gold these days, perhaps he was persecuted. For a moment, he imagined himself coming to Malfoy's aid - in a shop, perhaps, if the salesperson refused to help him. Harry would behave indignantly, and Malfoy would - well, what would Malfoy do? - Harry drew himself up short, because the whole scenario was ridiculous. 

It was on the tip of his tongue to ask Hermione what she knew about him: where he had been the past two years, whether he had any money, or anything like that. But as the dinner went on, each him he opened his mouth to ask his question, or to casually mention that he had run into the ferret that afternoon, he hesitated a little too long and someone else stepped in to fill the break in the conversation. It was only when Hannah brought a magnificence trifle to the table, and everyone began to dig in with spoons, that he realized that he had decided not to mention the encounter at all. It had been a while since he'd had some small secret to indulge in, after all. 

  


  


_ Now that I have achieved a respectable number of years, I can look back on my salad days with proper pride and proper distance: I can relate both the tales of my heroism, and the tales of my foolishness, with very little mortification.  _

Harry finally got around to opening his new book again that evening: in bed, after having brushed his teeth, washed his face, and skived down to a pair of black boxers, his favorite sleepwear even in late autumn. Wharflington was not a brilliant writer: that much was clear even from the first sentence. Yet he had a certain talent: a funny way of expressing himself that kept Harry entertained, even as the first chapter ran through the humdrum autobiographical business of explaining who his father and mother were, how many siblings he had, and where they had grown up. More important, however, once Wharflington had pushed through those preliminaries, was that he had a way of writing about quidditch that caused Harry to fly along with him: to feel the feints and sudden drops, and the wind in his hair as Wharflington described them, almost as if he was actually there. Games that had seemed too old to be of more than historic interest were suddenly played fresh in front of him, the great giants of the thirties and forties coming alive, and Harry suddenly understood why a few throw-away comments he had once made to the Prophet, about how recent advances in the game meant that today's players would fly circles around those of yesteryear, had been met with a few tart letters to the editor. 

He had almost never in his life missed sleep to read a book, unless it had been a textbook that he was anxiously cramming, usually alongside Ron and under Hermione's rigid supervision. At Hogwarts they'd often cast lumos under the covers to read the sports pages - Harry'd never gotten into the girly mags as much as the rest of them, but there had been those to - and as an adult he did read a few novels here and there, thank you very much, though more often non-fiction. He enjoyed them, but it had never stopped him from closing the cover of whatever he was working on at the proper hour, switching off the nightstand, and going to bed. 

Wharflington, however, was so engrossing that he read without noticing the time until one in the morning, at which point he was only about half-way through, and so he decided that since he didn't have any match or any practice the next day, he might as well keep going. It was three am when Wharflington finally made his permanent retirement from the game with a knee injury, and from three to four Harry learned about his later years as a commentator and advocate of the game. Everything ended on a happy note, love to his wife Jeanne and his handsome children, and the sky out the window was just lightening the slightest shade of gray when Harry finally closed the cover with a sigh and fell asleep with the book on the pillow beside him. 

  


  


Malfoy was behind the counter, and he glanced up as Harry entered. When he saw who it was he looked, if possible, even more constipated than he had the other day. Harry noticed that Malfoy pressed his right hand, the one that had trembled, firmly against the counter. Their eyes locked, and Harry mentally classified Malfoy as a frightened animal, one that might bite to defend itself. But then the expression in the gray eyes became inscrutable, and Malfoy relaxed legibly, and Harry had the sense of his own self being examined. 

Someone coughed, and this caused both of them to start. Looking all around, Harry finally located a thin dark haired girl of about thirteen, curled up in the corner of a bookshelf and the wall. She was sitting on the carpet, with a stack of novels beside her, reading, and she didn't look up at Harry, or indeed give any sign at all that she noticed him coming in. The sight of her there reminded Harry of the children's bookroom of the local library in Little Whinging, a place he had not thought of for a very long time. 

Her presence defused his rush of adrenaline and left Harry feeling vaguely foolish. The shop was as comfortable as before: soft rugs, warm wood. It was an incongruous place for a showdown, and Malfoy seemed to think so too. 

"Potter", he said warily. "Back so soon?" 

Harry nodded. 

"How did you enjoy 'My Life in Quidditch'?" Malfoy's voice was lightly mocking, but Harry felt his mood lift infinitesimally with the question. 

"It was great," He said. He still had the book in his pocket. "It made me remember why I fell in love with quidditch, like I was a kid again." In general, he would have been more reserved with Malfoy, but, taking a risk, he allowed his enthusiasm to show through. "Did Wharflington write any others?" 

Malfoy cocked his head. He was in the same worn robes as the other day, Harry noted, and he was sipping a cup of coffee that smelled wonderful. "No, he didn't. You're welcome to take a look around, but I doubt you'll find anything else here that suits you." 

Harry frowned, but he went over to the shelves and began to read the titles as he had before. Nothing jumped out at him however, and so ran his fingers along the spines. His attention was more on Malfoy than the books, though, and he wondered about the next thing to say. 

"Don't you have these in any order at all?" At least if all the quidditch books had been together, instead of thrown on the shelf haphazardly as they were, it might have saved him some time. 

There was no response. When Harry looked over he saw that Malfoy seemed engrossed in the paper, although Harry didn't doubt that was an act. Frowning, he went back to looking at the shelf. The books were arranged totally haphazardly. Really, Malfoy must be a pretty incompetent employee. Not that that was surprising, really, since he probably hadn't much work experience. 

One of the books gave him a little push, a shiver of energy that went up his finger as he ran it over the spine. "Hey, I can feel them." 

That got his attention, all right. Malfoy looked up, his eyes narrowed in appraisal. So did the girl in the corner, her dark eyes wide. 

Malfoy walked over to where Harry was standing, and touched his own hand, tentatively, to the same book Harry was touching. Harry was struck by how much thinner, and paler, Malfoy's hand was below his, almost tou ching. 

"You see, Potter", Malfoy said, light and mocking, but somehow also _fond, and_ Harry felt obscurely pleased that his question had moved Malfoy to civility, "Wizarding books, as you know, may possess some enchantment, but more subtly, they take on a little of the magic of their authors, and at times of their readers as well. Even a muggle book may gain some magic, as it passes through the hands of wizards who touch its pages, listen to its words, and fall under its spell for a while. After a while, the book may even seek its own readers -gently call out to the ones who will best appreciate its tale." Malfoy tapped the spine of one, as if it were an old friend. "Somehow, such books end up here, and similarly, somehow the people meant to read them also come. That is probably what you felt." 

He looked at the girl in corner when he said that, as if he was talking to her more than he was to Harry. She blushed, and hid her face in what she was reading. Harry couldn't help but look at the pile of volumes stacked around her, and wonder if she felt something in all of those books. 

Harry nodded slowly. "So that book - Wharflington's book - it was calling to me?" 

Malfoy shrugged. "A quidditch autobiography: you're the perfect reader for that." He hesitated for a moment, before adding, "I read it too, when I first worked here." 

Harry felt the corners of his lips twitching upward. "So, is that how did you ended up here, then? The books call you too?" 

Malfoy shrugged. "It's just a job," he slid a book he had been toying with back into its place on the shelf, "but yes, I like them." 

"It's pretty quiet here." 

Malfoy looked irritated again. "I like that too." 

"I haven't - er - heard much of you, since -," he had been about to say, "since the NEWTS," but Malfoy interrupted. 

"Since the war?" He smiled sardonically. "You know - lost the fortune, cut off by all my former friends, father dead, mother in prison," he stopped, perhaps because of the stricken look on Harry's face. 

"I didn't know all of that." 

He waited for Malfoy to follow up with something biting, possibly about Harry's lack of tactfulness, and for a moment the blonde seemed about to. But then he merely shrugged. Harry wondered if he'd lost his taste for insults. 

"Ollivander owns this place." Malfoy added unexpectedly. 

"Ollivander!" He couldn't help but be surprised. "I thought…"

Malfoy turned a wry eye. "Well, yes. His giving me a job was - unexpected." He lifted his hand to adjust his collar, and it trembled slightly. "I think he bought this place to restart his business, but it didn't work because of the," he waved his hand vaguely, "wards, and all the books. He changed his mind again later, anyway." 

Harry remembered hearing something about that: about the large number of people who have of late asked Ollivander to reopen his business, or, barring that, to at least make them a few custom wands. Ollivander usually refused, although he had made one or two wands as gifts. 

"Wait a minute - all the books? Surely you could just get rid of them?" 

"The place seems to like being a bookshop," Malfoy said mildly, "just as the books like to be read." 

Harry nodded. "Well," he said, "It's very nice. Warm and cozy, I guess. Peaceful. Not too many people come in though, I'd imagine, with all those wards outside." 

"Those come with the building too. But I'm glad, it would be a problem if we had too many customers… as it is, the ones who are meant to come still do." 

"Does that mean I was meant to come?" Harry teased, and, unexpectedly, Malfoy reddened and snapped. 

"That, Potter, I wouldn't know." 

It had probably been a bit too much: they weren't friends, it was surprising that they'd managed a civil conversation so far. Something in Malfoy's tone had led Harry to want to be friendly, but it must have been a freak impulse. 

Malfoy looked shifty. "I hope this isn't a problem for you, my being here." 

Harry was offended. He shook his head, businesslike. "Of course not. As a matter of fact, I'm not sorry I ran into you. It's been,"- nice, was on the tip of his tongue, but that didn't seem quite appropriate, so Harry settled instead for-, "interesting, Malfoy." 

Malfoy nodded, shortly, but he did not reply. 

  


  


Harry didn't have any reason to visit the shop again after that, but he found it remaining in the back of his mind: the thought of a warm, comfortable room juxtaposed with Malfoy's prickly, cool presence. It itched at him. Still, perhaps nothing would ever have happened, if not for something that occurred about a week later, when he was on Diagon Alley again: this time with Jeremy, the friend who, as Hannah predicted, was recently becoming a bit too clingy for Harry's tastes. 

Jeremy was young, good-looking, and always a lot of fun, a regular guy. Status shouldn't matter, Harry figured, but he was becoming increasingly suspicious that it did, at least insofar as Jeremy probably would not have been quite so hell-bent on a relationship with him had he not been the Boy-Who-Lived and Puddlemere's star seeker besides. 

They had gone to Fortescue's for ice cream, and later, as they walked in the direction of the stationers, Jeremy kept trying to weave their fingers together. Harry wasn't sure if Jeremy genuinely thought that things were going well, or was just desperately trying to maintain a good atmosphere. For the third or fourth time, he tolerated the hand holding for a few minutes out of politeness, before finding it awkward and taking an excuse to pull away, and it was just then that they passed by the trinket store, "Magdala's Mementos" and he happened to look in the windows. They were decorated with pink and white tinsel, advertising a glittery display of things like playing cards enchanted with the faces of household pets, accessories charmed to change the color of your hair, and small mirrors that would advise on the proper application of make-up. Harry remembered Rohde's locket, and decided that finding one might be worth another half-hour with Jeremy. 

"Come on," he nodded his head towards the entrance. "Let's go in." 

Jeremy looked pleased, but then confused. "Magdala's?" 

"I need something for Victoire's birthday," Harry blithely lied. 

Jeremy pouted because it was, after all, a ridiculous store for a twenty-one-year old man to have to enter, but then, because he loved everything that Harry did anyway, he decides that it was funny in an ironic way and started to follow Harry around the story, pointing out the most ridiculous paraphernalia in a sugary-sweet voice. Harry tried to ignore him, in the same way that he tried to ignore the fact that all the other customers in the store were female, less than sixteen, and staring at him with glazed googly eyes. 

"Harry Potter?" He overheard someone say, followed by much squealing. He took a moment to wonder, had adolescent girls been so frightening back in school, when he'd been an adolescent too? 

Actually, the answer to that was yes. But if Rohde could brave the pink and glittered halls of Magdala's Mementos, then by Merlin, so could Harry. 

Finally, he found the small locket. It was behind the counter, and he had to ask to see it. It was a bit embarrassing, but he powered through by smiling winningly at the saleswoman, and repeating his story about Victoire. 

"Sorry," the saleswoman said apologetically, "all the larger models are sold out." 

Opening it, he saw the lobe of what was unmistakably a freckled ear, though he could not determine from which Weasley it came. 

"Let me see," said Jeremy, and Harry handed it over. Jeremy studied the mirror for a minute before looked confused. "Nothing there. Is there supposed to more?" 

"Ah, not necessarily," hastened the saleswoman. "Try again later, it might…" 

"I'll take it," said Harry.  

Out in the sunlight again Jeremy wanted to look at it again, but Harry demurred. That put Jeremy into a snit, which turned into a minor row, probably the outcome that had been brewing all along. Harry watched Jeremy storm off with a feeling of relief, although he wondered whether he ought to apologize later, or whether it would be all right to just let the rift widen naturally. 

Left alone on the street, he took the locket from its bag and unwrapped it carefully. He opened it experimentally, closed it, and then opened it again three more times. 

The first time he thought he saw Arthur Weasley's kindly face. The second he glimpsed a patch of soft check, likely either Hannah or Neville. Both images were just what he expected, so he couldn't have say why exactly he felt disappointed by them. 

The third time he opened the locket, there was one clear, gray eye. It was framed by a blonde eyebrow, and the skin around it was very pale. Harry felt his mouth pulling into a smile at the sight. Perhaps it was not enough of a glimpse of someone that he should have been able to tell who it was - but he did, he recognized the eye and the brow so clearly that there could be only one reason for it. 

That, then, was what he had been waiting for. Harry turned abruptly, robe snapping in the breeze, to head back down the length of the street towards the bookshop on the farther end. 

  


  


When he arrived, however, Malfoy wasn't even in. Instead it was Ollivander's gray head that peeked around from the curtain into the back room when Harry entered. 

"Harry Potter," Ollivander said, and Harry wasn't sure if his name was pronouncement, a greeting, or a complaint. People often liked to address Harry by his full name, which to Harry made it seem as though he was more of a concept to them than a person. But anyway, it was Ollivander, so he merely nodded, politely. 

"What can I do for you today?" Ollivander asked stiffly. 

Harry shrugged, feeling embarrassed. "I just stopped by to say hello to Malfoy." The name felt strange on his tongue,"I didn't need anything." 

"Ah." Ollivander just looked at him. After a moment he said slowly, "I didn't think you and Draco were friends." It was a question, though it was phrased as a statement. 

Harry fired back without thinking, "I didn't think you were friends with him either." 

Ollivander looked at him a bit longer, and then chuckled dryly. "Fair enough." He gestured, and with a lazy swipe of his wrist, pulled a stool from the wall closer to the counter.  "Would you like a cup of tea, Mr. Potter?" 

"Yes, please." He sat and waited as Ollivander disappears into the back room. It occurred to him that he hadn't seen Malfoy use magic in the shop, although he was carrying heavy books on the first occasion, which he might more easily have levitated. The tremors, too, appeared to be in Malfoy's wand-hand. 

Ollivander re-emerged from the curtain with two cups and saucers. There was a slice of lemon to the side of Harry's cup, but no milk or sugar. Ollivander didn't offer them, and Harry decided not to ask. They sipped their tea for a moment. To Harry the silence seemed awkward, and finally, he hit on something to say. 

"I got a letter from Luna last week. She's in the Amazon with her father. She's says they've discovered - er - that some of the tribes use magic to communicate with the river seals, something like that." 

Ollivander's expression softened marginally. "The river dolphins, you mean." He sipped his tea thoughtfully. "She writes regularly, which is odd when you consider that her letters are often nearly incomprehensible." 

Harry laughed. "That sounds about right. One time, she sent Hermione a single leaf wrapped in a sheet of paper. We still don't know what she wanted her to do with it." 

Ollivander nodded. "Luna is an interesting person. In a way, it's because of her that I took Draco on." He looked at Harry shrewdly. "Are you curious about that?" 

"Yes, I guess," Harry said, "but, I mean, it isn't any of my business."

"No, it isn't," Ollivander looked at Harry, "But there's no secret about it. He came looking for a job - he didn't know I was the one who placed the advertisement in the Prophet. I suppose you know that the Ministry is keeping the Malfoy fortune 'in trust' until Draco finishes his parole? He's supposed to have an allowance for personal expenses, but it never comes through - too many enemies at the Ministry. I'll be surprised if it ever really gets returned in full... ah, well. You should have seen his face when he saw that he'd responded to my ad, he must have thought I would curse him, right on the doorstep." 

He was speaking slowly, contemplatively. "He had only just realized how desperate his situation was. Of course I knew as well - no money whatsoever, and no one would give him a job, even if he did still have the full use of his magic. I almost turned him away, but…" Ollivander paused, seeming to consider his words, and Harry waited patiently. "I had an impulse. You see, I had seen him, during that time I was - ah -imprisoned. You would think that it is very hard to be rational when you are being tortured, but instead I found that, oddly, everything was exceptionally clear to me. My situation was so desperate that I could not give myself the luxury of self-delusion. I was forced instead to be detached, and in that detachment I had to give up my old prejudices, including those about the Malfoys. I saw Draco as afraid: he had been too cowardly, just as I was, to extricate himself from the whole mess before it went too far." His eyes were murky. "Does any of this make sense to you, Mr. Potter?" 

"You felt sorry for him." 

"No. That is not it, not that at all. I have no pity left, not when mothers and children were slaughtered together in their houses. No. I didn't pity Draco, but I had a belief that, in order for me to move past the experiences of the war, that he - that I - would both, for our own sanity, be better off looking each other in the face, quickly, early on. I am not brave-" he caught Harry's sharp gaze, and looked aside. "But you know that," he sighed, "perhaps it's impossible for me to explain." 

"Something good," Harry said, "you wanted to try to try to make things better." 

"I wanted to try to make myself better," Ollivander said. "And I saw a little of Luna in Draco." 

Harry smiled, wondering if either of them would like that comparison. 

"The reason, I suppose, that I am really telling you all this," Ollivander continued, "is that, much to my surprise, my little experiment in humanism has borne fruit. I have come to see that Draco is not the boy he once was. Others may not understand this yet, and in fact I believe that he has been hurt by - " Ollivander stopped himself. "He's a young man, but he lives in this store like a hermit. He leaves very rarely, no one comes to see him. He's still - well, I don't want you to make things harder for him, Mr. Potter, that's all." 

Ollivander looked a little uncomfortably, finally completing his speech. Harry felt awkward as well. 

"I don't plan to do that," Harry said, "I just want to - well-" What did he want? Harry wondered uncomfortably. To find out what it meant, that he had seen Draco's face in a children's toy? He looked around him for a moment, trying to think of something else to say. "You don't make wands anymore." 

"No. Perhaps I will someday again, but not for now." Ollivander smiled queerly, and then, draining his cup to the dregs, peered inside to read the leaves. "Nothing there," he murmured. "My future has always been murky, of late. Let me see yours." 

To Harry, reading tea leaves always reminded him unpleasantly of Trelawney's overly-warm classroom at school, but he finished his cup politely, and passed it over. 

"Well, Mr. Potter," Ollivander said, looking in the cup and then up at Harry. "I predict that we will be seeing you again." 

  


He thought about what Ollivander had said, and also what Harry had not been able to ask, which was what about Malfoy's magic, all throughout the weekend, which was devoted to an away match in Berlin. There Harry strained a tendon, and although the mediwizard healed it immediately, it was still stiff the following Monday. Because of this, he took things lightly, and held back during the team practice that afternoon. They were holding tryouts for a new chaser, and Harry, perched on his broom, mostly just watched from above. It was a perfect day for Quidditch: blue sky above them green pitch below, crisp chilly air and the bright colorful shapes of the uniformed players at an altitude below them darted back and forth like birds. After a while Ollie joined him, coming up high so as to get a better view of the proceedings. Harry succumbed to his curiosity and mentioned the name of Malfoy. 

"Draco?" Ollie replied, the end of his broom lazily touching Harry's as they watched the couch run a potential second chaser through her rounds. "Gay as a window, I always thought back in school, but I haven't heard anything about him in years. Why, has he reappeared?" 

Harry shrugged. "Sort of," he said, "ran into him a while ago, and it was interesting …" He was stopped by Ollie's laugher. "What?" 

"You? Draco Malfoy? It doesn't matter if he's gay, I'd bet galleons that he'd blow Voldemort's corpse before you." 

"Water under the bridge," Harry said airily. "I did save him from a fiery death, you know." 

"You must be insane," Ollie said admiringly, "I'd be afraid of him cursing me in my sleep. My God, look at her go!" They watched Ginny Weasley finish a very tidy practice run, ending with a long Quaffle through the hoop with neat precision. "If she ends up with us," Ollie said, "Puddlemere will be more than half Gryffindor." 

Ginny turned another nice loop. "Better that the management picks someone else, then," Harry admitted. "We need a bit of diversity, style-wise, on the team" - he glanced sideways at Ollie - "and you must admit, everyone out of McGonagell's house plays very damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead." 

"I thought Ginny was a friend of yours." 

"She is, but that's not the point." 

It grew quiet for a while. Harry enjoyed the sun against his skin, the perfect blue sky, and the shouts and cheers of the players below, until Ollie scooted up even closer alongside him again, until their legs almost touched. 

For two young, attractive gay men with similar interests, it was rather a mystery to Harry - to Ollie too, he supposed - that there had never been much sexual tension between them. Oh, it had been too obvious not to try, and so they had: right after Harry had signed with Puddlemere, a carefully-orchestrated mutual ambush in the locker rooms. Though they had sweatily groped and grappled at each other - in Quidditch leathers, too, which was a shared kink - somehow it had all felt as if they were just going through the motions. Afterwards they'd repeated the experiment two or three times more, but finally given it up, and settled instead into a comfortable friendship. 

"Youre, right, I was thinking of asking him out," he admitted abruptly. 

"Really?" 

"I know, Draco Malfoy, but it couldn't hurt to…" he felt he'd better not tell Ollie about the locket. 

"Well, yeah. Good luck." Ollie said comfortably, although his voice was still tinged with skepticism. 

A nd perhaps it was a bit unlikely after all. Despite what the stupid locket said: it was just a toy and might very well be defective. Malfoy didn't seem to like him very much, and he wasn't at all sure that he liked Malfoy, and besides all that, they made an odd pair. But still, it wasn't like that mattered, really, and it never hurt to- 

"Hey," Ollie said loudly, looking alarmed. "Heads up! A bludger will get you." 

  


He prided himself on being impulsive and devil-may-care when it came to relationships, which is why, that night, as he kicked up the sheets until they were balled at the bottom of his mattress, he tried to blame his insomnia on the noise from the street. He was just considering looking up a good soporific spell, the kind one could cast on oneself without difficulty, when he heard the sound of someone coming through the floo. The coughing and spluttering was distinctly Ron's, so he was only a little alarmed as if threw on a light robe and slippers, and took a moment to be thankful that his currently single state meant that there was no one in his bed that he might have to awkwardly introduce. He opened his bedroom door to find the redhead on the verge on entering. 

"George?" He asked. 

Ron nodded, "I don't know what's happened, but I stopped by the shop this evening and found him locked in the back room. I can't get him to unlock it." 

Harry followed him back through the floo into Wheezes. Ron had left the light on, but the shop still felt eerie and quiet in comparison to the hustle and bustle of daytime. They went to the door to the office area at the back of the shop. It was, as Ron had said, locked tight. 

"George?" Ron rapped against the door with his knuckle. Harry couldn't tell if the light behind was on or off. "He's in there," Ron whispered. "He told me to sod off awhile before. God, I hate this. I wish Ginny was here, or Bill. They handle it so much better." 

Harry nodded sympathetically and rapped on the door with his knuckle. "George? It's Harry." They both listened. Straining his ears, Harry could hear muffled, heavy breathing. Probably George was crying, but he didn't like people to know that. 

"George? If you don't open the door, I'm going to take it down," he warned. They waited again, but there was no reply. 

"Come on George, we don't want to bother you; just checking that you're all right," Ron said apologetically. When no answer came, he shrugged and nodded towards Harry, backing away from the door. 

Harry grasped his wand, taking a moment to let the magic flow through his body. He felt it prickling along his scalp, down his neck and along his arms, and felt, uncomfortably, Ron's eyes on him. He tried to keep his magic under wraps, these days - it was one of the reasons he no longer was sure about joining the Aurors - but breaking through the wards that kept the Weasley Wheeze's office door shut required either power or finesse, and Harry didn't have the second available to him. 

They should have had a trap door added to the wards, he thought, so that he or Ron or anyone could bring the wards down even after George had set them up, but it was still George's shop most of all, and he would have been insulted at the suggestion of it. 

Concentrating on the door, he thrust his wand forward. "Alohomora!" 

The door, obligingly, fell from its hinges. Ron rushed forward in time to catch and tilt it to the side before it crashed down. He looked at Harry with wide eyes. 

"You opened our door with Alohomora?" he asked. 

Harry shrugged. 

"That's supposed to be a secure door, mate!" Ron looked scandalized, even as he went forward into the room, looking for George. "We keep our money in this office! Alohomora shouldn't-" 

" It wouldn't work for anyone but me," Harry admitted. Ron looked quickly back at him, but was distracted by the sight of George. 

"George!" They could make out his red hair: he was crumpled in a corner seemingly asleep,  several empty bottles of firewhiskey stacked around him. 

"Just drunk," Ron said with relief, crouching down to examine his brother. "Merlin, I wish he would stop doing this." 

Harry frowned and crouched down as well. "George," he said, touching George's shoulder. "George, wake up." George didn't wake, or even stir. Ron and Harry both frowned, and Ron pushed his shoulder, a little harder than Harry had done. Harry pulled his wand. "Rennervate!" 

This time, George moaned, but he didn't wake. Harry shook his head. "I don't like to cast a stronger one." 

Ron, meanwhile, was rummaging in George's pockets. After a moment, he withdrew a small flask and sniffed it gingerly. 

"What is it?" Harry asked. 

"I don't know. It's sweetish." He wrinkled his nose. "Should we take him to St. Mungo's?" 

"Floo," Harry decided. Maneuvering George's larger body between them, they got him up and dragged him toward the floo. Harry used his free hand to throw the floo powder, and they pulled him through, Harry first, George, and then Ron behind them. 

The St. Mungo's ER was quiet. One bickering couple was waiting on uncomfortable plastic chairs, and the nurse behind the counter seemed to be going through their paperwork at an unhurried rate. When they arrived through the floo, however, they must have seemed desperate enough to draw her attention, for she rose rapidly to help them. 

She brought them to an examining room, where the Healer on duty quickly arrived, ran a few scanning spells, drew some blood, and did something with his wand that apparently allowed him to get a bit of George's stomach acid for analysis as well. 

"Sedatives," He pronounced clinically, "muggle alcohol and firewhiskey." He seemed to take pity on Ron. "I don't think he was trying to injure himself, Mr. Weasley. The quantities aren't that large. But muggle alcohol and pharmaceuticals don't really mix well with Wizarding ones - he'd be well advised to keep that in mind." He tucked his wand back into his pocket. "We'll give him a potion to rehydrate him, and another to neutralize all those toxins out of his system. He'll be fine, just tell him to take it easy next time." 

Harry bit his lip to keep from pointing out that George probably knew that he shouldn't be mixing the muggle-and-wizard. He's done it a few times himself, and the hangover that followed was awful. Most likely George had done it on purpose. 

They were given a curtained off space to wait while George came around. Ron looked exhausted, and Harry took pity on him. "Go home," he said. "I'll take him back, I'll spend the night as well. See you in the morning." 

Ron looked guilty, but he nodded. "Thanks, Harry." 

  


When George finally came around, Harry helped him back through the floo, this time to his apartment, which took up the floor above Wheezes. George looked embarrassed and unwell and didn't say much, and Harry didn't attempt to fill up the space with noise either. After he got George to bed, he made himself as comfortable as he could on George's narrow couch, curling up knees and elbows for the rest of the night. 

When the first gray morning light came into the room, he gave up on trying to sleep. A quick search of George's kitchen revealed no coffee, no tea, no milk, and no cereal: in fact, very little that was edible at all. George would not be up for hours, so Harry apparated back to his own neighborhood for a quick run, a shower and some clothing, and then picked up a few essentials on the way back to George's. 

By the time George stumbled into the kitchen there was coffee brewing. Harry offered him a mug. Grimacing, George accepted, and gulped back a big mouthful of the still-scalding liquid quickly. 

"Breakfast?" Harry asked. 

George frowned. "Ugh, no." He looked embarrassed. "I'm really sorry about - well - to be honest, I don't really know what happened." 

Harry cradled his warm coffee in both hands. "What do you remember?" George looked embarrassed. "You weren't trying to," Harry fumbled, "You know..." 

"God, no!" George realized his meaning, "no, I just wanted to take the edge off." 

"The healer said that people can die from mixing substances that way." 

George's eyes went wide. So, he really hadn't intended it, then. Harry breathed an internal sigh of relief. 

"I wouldn't do that," George said. "I mean, not to my family…" Harry nodded, remembing that George had told him once that he mostly only stayed alive because he knew it would kill his parents if he didn't. 

"I know." 

He hung around while George made himself presentable and then they went together to Wheezes, Harry for no particular reason other than because he had the morning free and to give Ron a bit of reassurance. Ron was already there when they arrived, trying to deal with too many customers at once. George gracefully jumped into the fray, and the way he answered questions about extendable ears and coxed a mother and daughter into trying the latest toffees (designed to make your stomach growl with animal sounds), if Harry hadn't known himself how desolate he had seemed the night before he never would have guessed. 

"Harry, can you man the register for a bit?" Ron called out. "I need to go visit the wardsmith to see about that door you took down." 

Harry nodded agreeably, and for the next half-hour, he was comfortably engaged in selling Extendable Ears, Whizzing Wingdigs, and Overflowing Pumpkin Juice Gag Glasses to the masses. 

Then, finally, just when there was a lull in the purchases, he happened to look out the window and see a man passing outside, a blond head in a gray coat. He made it to the front door, threw it open, and called out, "Malfoy!" 

Malfoy had just reached the corner. When he turned around he looked nervous, although Harry wasn't sure if it was because of him, or the attention he was causing on the street. Harry jogged over to him. 

"Are you on your way to the shop? I went back there the other day. Ollivander was there." 

"I heard." Malfoy looked cautious. "Why were you there?" 

Harry felt his face turning red. "Just wanted to - er - stop by" - to his amazement, he saw the Malfoy's ears going pink as well, and he grew more confident. 

"You needn't visit again, Potter," Malfoy said, loftily, "I don't want your charity." The last word came out a bit of a hiss, which might have been either hostility or uncertainty. Harry thought of the brow in the mirror, and what Ollivander had said. Suddenly, he felt confident, even playful. It was Malfoy, after all. After all the quidditch they'd played against each other as boys, some chase would be in order. 

" That isn't the reason," He laughed to himself as he saw Malfoy looking more uncertain. Then the gray eyes narrowed. 

"You needn't visit for any reason." He looked around. "Also, please don't address me in the street again. I'd like to avoid trouble." 

Harry leaned back on his heels, crossing his arms. "Why would talking to me cause you problems?" He shrugged. "Anyway, I refuse - you run a shop, don't you? You can't just tell people not to come." 

Just as Malfoy looked about to retort, George's footsteps came up behind Harry. 

"Malfoy!" George said, sounding concerned.,"Is he bothering you, Harry?" 

Malfoy turned a shade paler, and Harry felt badly for him.  "No, George," he looked at Malfoy as he spoke, "he works at a shop nearby. It's not a bad place." 

It was hard to say who looked more surprised, Malfoy or George, but George collected himself first. "If you say so, Harry," he said. "Is that the place at the end of the street?" 

Malfoy nodded cautiously. 

"Alright," George said slowly. "Maybe I'll see you around, then, Malfoy." 

"Actually, if you're going that way now, I'll join you," Harry said, "I want some of that coffee that smelled so good the other day." 

Malfoy looked about to say something sharp, but instead he merely turned, with a snap of his robe, and began striding down the street. Harry gave George a cheerful wave and hurried to catch up with him. After a moment, Malfoy slowed enough to let Harry come up next to him. 

"I don't know why you're doing this," he hissed. Harry shrugged. They headed down the rest of the street in a silence that was not quite companionable, at least on Malfoy's side, and Harry thought about how long it would take George to tell Ron what had happened, and how long it would take Ron to tell everyone else, and how therefore his budding-some-kind-of-association with Malfoy was no longer confined to that small cozy bookshop. They were talking down the street together, and everyone would see them, and strangely that didn't bother Harry at all, but left him feeling vaguely pleased. 

"Can I call you Draco?" he asked. 

Malfoy looked extremely affronted. "Why?" 

"You can call me Harry," He countered, "it'll be a fresh start." 

"Absolutely not." 

"Why not?" 

Malfoy didn't answer, and Harry decided to try another tactic. "Why does your wand hand shake?" 

Malfoy seemed taken aback. He brought his hand up to his face. It wasn't trembling just then. 

"Not your business." He seemed about to add something, but then he stopped, looking down the road. There was a figure there, Harry saw, a small person in a pea coat-like robe waiting in front of the shop. It was the girl who had been there at the bookstore the other day as well. 

"Ida," Draco called out, breaking into a jog, "why are you here so early? I didn't know, or I'd have left the door open." 

"It doesn't matter," the girl said, "It's not your fault, you didn't know." 

"Still," Malfoy grumbled, as he unwarded the door and made way for both of them. They all filed into the shop. "Ida, would you like coffee?" 

"Yes, please." Malfoy shrugged and turned. Harry watched as he disappeared for a moment, returning with a small bag from which he measured beans into the fancy machine behind the counter, added water, and turned the dial until the machine began grinding. 

The girl Ida folder her coat, and pulled up a stool next to Harry's. He was impressed with how quiet and adult she seemed compared to the shrieking girls he'd encountered at Magdala's the other day. 

"Ida, I don't know if you've been properly introduced, this is Harry Potter," Malfoy said, "Potter, Ida Scryingstone. Ida, Harry Potter." 

She looked at him dubiously. Harry smiled, but unfortunately it came out as his fake quidditch smile, and that only left her looking more dubious. Finally, he gave up and simply stuck out his hand, which she peered at for a moment before accepting. 

There was silence for a moment, as the warm rich odor filled the store: Malfoy frothed warmed milk, and made a perfect layer of it atop each cup: three very neat cappuccinos. Harry sniffed and then sipped appreciatively, and was quietly amused by the adult manner in which Ida did the same. He realized that Malfoy was civil when Ida was there - apparently, he didn't like to snark in front of her. 

"Congratulations," Malfoy's voice broke the lull. 

"Oh, thanks. For what?" "Your win against the Blizten last Sunday?" 

"Oh. Thanks." 

"You don't sound terribly enthusiastic," Malfoy seemed disapproving. 

"No, I am." Seeing quidditch as a business, as he did of late, had made Harry less emotionally involved in his team's wins and losses. Still, a win was a win, and it looked like they had a good chance at the championship if all went well. 

He turned to Ida. "Do you like quidditch?" 

I da looked polite. "I don't really know the rules, but it seems nice, with the flying and all."

Harry looked at her in amazement, "is there any wizarding child alive who doesn't care about quidditch? You seem like you spend a lot of time here, hasn't Malfoy reformed you yet?" 

She giggled, "I went to a game once, when I was little, with my father." 

"Well, you should go again," She looked slightly pensive, and didn't answer. Perhaps she was afraid of heights, Harry wondered, and tried to change the subject. 

"What's that book?" She brightened as she looked at the cover. "Morgana Poundstone. It's fun, full of pureblooded girls who marry muggleborns and end up desperately unhappy, and then the less emotional ones who do what their family wants and are better-off in the end." 

Malfoy, surprisingly, made a face. "Those dreadful old books." 

"Well, yes, but it's so _interesting_ " the girl's small face looked very serious. "The way she thinks about things. It was a long time ago," She informed Harry. "Maybe it was even true, back then." 

Harry nodded, although he was utterly confused. Even when he read fiction, he had never gone much for wi zard literature.  "You don't feel the same way, do you?" he asked tentatively.

"Oh, no," Ida laughed, "No, I just mean it's interesting to know what she thought, not to believe in it. That would be terrible." 

Harry snuck a glance at Malfoy, who was nodding. 

"Oh. Good." He felt relieved. "Should I try it too, then?" 

"No," both Ida and Malfoy said immediately. 

"It wouldn't be your kind of thing," Malfoy added, after a moment, "eighteenth-century wizarding version of Clarissa, basically." "Clarissa?" 

The two looked at each other again, and Ida giggled. "Oh, all right," said Harry, feeling inexplicably happy. "I see how this is. You two are the bookworms, and I'm the illiterate…" 

"Well," said Malfoy, imperiously, "we weren't going to say anything, but…" and Harry made a face at him, scrunching up his eyes and sticking out his tongue. When he looked at Malfoy again, the blond was staring at him with a perplexed expression. 

The three lapsed back into silence before Harry remembered the charmed locket, still in his pocket. 

"Here," he said to Ida, pulling it from his pocket. "I bought this at Magdala's the other day. See what you think." 

Ida took it, examined it from the outside, and opened it. "A mirror," she said. 

"No," Harry said, "look, who do you see there?" "

Nobody," she sounded confused. 

"Let me try," Harry took it from her and tilted it towards the light. Now, sure enough, there was a bright patch of Weasley hair. "It's supposed to show you someone who likes you, you know, a crush or a friend, or maybe your parents." 

He handed it back towards Ida, who stared at it for a moment before tentatively accepting. She stared, and the blinked. "Yes," she said, uncertainly. She handed it back to Harry. "Yes, you're right, I did see someone." 

"Well, who? A boy at school?" 

"Potter," Malfoy's voice was warning, though Harry had no idea why. It was a good idea, after all. Schoolgirls loved crushes. Too late, he realized that Ida looked about to cry. Before he had a chance to think, Draco snatched the locket away from him, and gave it back to Ida. "Look again," he said, rather more fiercely, Harry thought dazedly, than the silly thing demanded. 

Mechanically she obeyed him, and this time, miraculously, her solemn face broke into a wide smile. Harry had not previously thought her a particularly attractive little girl, but her smile brightened her whole demeanor. "Yes, Draco!" she said, "yes, you're right, I see you!" 

Harry felt an unexpected burst of something flash through his chest: jealousy, at hearing Ida use Malfoy's given name so freely. But before he had time to analyze the feeling further, the door opened. 

The woman who entered was thin and elegant, and dressed in the kind of robes Harry knew that by cut, tailoring, and quality, could only have come from only about four shops in England and Europe. She wore a very smart small hat, of the kind that were popular among muggles before the Second World War, and which had never entirely lost popularity in the wizarding community (whose response to outside trends was always slow). She was pale and had thick, glossy, dark hair, and her resemblance to Ida was immediately evident. 

She looked at the three of them drinking coffee with the appearance of someone who had smelled something very bad. Then she looked more carefully at Harry, and her brow wrinkled very slightly, and she cocked her head like a bird. 

"Madame Scryingstone," Malfoy said. 

She kept her gaze fixed on Harry. 

"Harry Potter," she said. 

Harry nodded. "How do you do? You are, er, Ida's mother?" For some inexplicable reason the woman looked annoyed, but she nodded anyway and forced her lips into a smile. "It is very good to meet you, what a coincidence", she said, bringing her hand forward. Harry shook it politely. "We've never met before, but the committee of which I am chairwoman, the Conservative Witches Movement, recently sent you an invitation to our annual fundraiser." 

There was actually a man at the club, part of whose job was to wade through Harry's many invitations. Since this particular one was had never made it into Harry's hands, it was likely that the man hadn't thought it worth his time. 

"I see," he said. "I'll check on that, I don't remember exactly…" 

"The twelfth of this month," she said persuasively, "you are free?" 

"I'm afraid I don't remember," Harry looked rather desperately at Malfoy, but the blonde only looked amused - he shouldn't have thought to seek sympathy from that quarter. But Ida, he realized, looked absolutely stricken, pain-faced. It must be a trial to have such a harridan as a mother, Harry realized. 

"Yes, of course," he managed, finally. "I'll do my best to be there. For Ida," he stressed. 

Madam Scryingstone looked annoyed for a moment, but then her features twisted back into a poor imitation of pleasure. "How kind of you," she said, "to take an interest in Ida. I really do appreciate it. Well, in any case." She dusted her sleeves with her gloved hands in what seemed to be a nervous gesture. "I am only here to collect her. Come, Ida, we must be home by lunchtime." 

Obediently, Ida rose. As she followed her mother out the door though, she turned back. The look that past between her and Malfoy was difficult to decipher, but had Harry to guess, he'd call it darkly humorous. The bell clanged loudly as the door slammed shut behind her. 

They sat in silence for five full seconds, and then Malfoy let out a long, shaky laugh. 

"My God, Potter," he said. "I don't know whether to thank you, or brain you with a heavy object." 

Harry blinked. "What?" He demanded. "Why would you? Ida's mother seems like a bit of a trial, really, why should such a nice girl have such a terrible -" 

"Ida's a squib," Malfoy burst out. Harry's mouth dropped open, but Malfoy plowed on. "That's normally something I would let her tell you herself, but really Potter, did you even think about why a school-aged girl might not be at Hogwarts this time of year?" He frowned. "The Scryingstones are an old, pureblooded family - nothing to the Malfoys, of course," he sniffed, "but a generation ago, they'd have left her on the doorstep of some muggle family. Or put her in the attic. Her mother is terribly embarrassed of Ida - I've heard it's sometimes difficult to even get her to admit she has a daughter." 

"That's terrible! How could she do such a thing to her own child?" 

Malfoy simply looked at him. 

"Well, it's just wrong!" A terrible thought occurred to him. "Does that mean, when she took the locket, she really saw nobody?" 

Malfoy shrugged. "Of course not; a toy like that doesn't have an internal source of power. It uses a bit of residual magic from the person holding it to fuel the charm." 

"But she said she saw someone." 

"She made that up because she was embarrassed," Malfoy frowned, "really, how insensitive can you be?" 

"But then she saw you," Harry stated. 

Malfoy sighed. "Those things work by a combination of proximity and intensity, Potter. I just had to think about her very hard. It was my magic that made it work, which is why it showed her a picture of me. " 

"So… you… like her?" Malfoy's expression grew darker. "Really, are you trying to be insulting? I'm not a degenerate, Potter. I just sympathize with her. She's really a very intelligent child, I'm sure she could carry on a more interesting conversation about Hemingway than you could. Anyway," he caught himself, stopping mid-sentence. 

"Anyway what?" Harry pressed his advantage. 

"Anyway," Malfoy drew out, turning his head to the side so he didn't have to look at Harry. A light blush brushed his cheeks, "even if she wasn't ten years to young for me, I'm not sure she'd be the right gender." 

Harry found himself grinning. "That's all right, then." Malfoy was surprised into looking at him, his mouth a charming O. "Forgive me for saying so," Harry added, more seriously, "But the Draco Malfoy I remember wouldn't have defended a squib." 

Malfoy looked cautious. "We all change." 

"Yes," Harry said meaningfully, "we do." 

He sighed, and drew up on his stool. A small ray of light had fought its way through the grimy windows, splashed across front bookshelves. He had an appointment with one of the sponsors of the club, which he desperately wished he could to cancel. Reluctantly, he slid from his perch and began to put on his coat. 

"Will you actually go to the Scryingstone's fundraiser?" Malfoy asked. 

"Would you go with me?" 

He snorted. "As excruciating as that would be, Potter, I have _not_ been invited. And while showing up on your arm might be entertaining, it could easily result in Ida never being allowed to come here again." 

"Oh," said Harry, "I didn't think of that. Well, in that case, I won't go either." 

Malfoy frowned but let him leave. 

  


  


The next time he went to the bookshop, Malfoy didn't argue too much about him being there, but merely let him poke around for a while before pouring him, without asking, a cup of coffee. Harry counted it a victory. 

He kept sneaking glances at Harry that were more cautious than curious, which Harry supposed was fair enough. He drank his coffee and waited the right moment to engage him in conversation. To his surprise, however, Malfoy spoke first. 

"I don't actually know what's wrong with my hand," he said, sitting down besides Harry after he had finished selling a book to a slow old witch - the only other book Harry had seen sold at the shop so far had been the Wharflington. "It started during the war, but it wasn't bad right away." He shrugged, as if an unsteady wand hand was a trivial problem, and Harry kept his own tone light, in kind. 

"It must make it difficult when casting." 

"Simple spells are all right," Malfoy paused, "harder ones, I've got to try a few times. It's not like I need them much, and I deserve it, anyway." He didn't sound sorry for himself, he spoke rather simply. And, in a fair reckoning of the universe, Harry was inclined to agree. Most likely, neither what he nor Malfoy had done was forgivable by any light punishment. 

"Have you been to St. Mungo's?" Malfoy shrugged, which Harry was forced to take as a yes or a no. "You could, you know - it might be good to have it looked at." Malfoy's darkening expression stopped him from saying more. 

"Is that why you try to help Ida?" 

Malfoy looked even angrier. "No!" He said. He paused for a moment, until his expression cleared. "No. She just showed up here, some time ago. I…" He shrugged. "Perhaps I should pity her, but I don't really. At least she's smarter than I was at her age." 

They were silent, until after a while Harry said the first thing that went into his head. 

"Ollivander seems alright," Malfoy looked at him in amazement. "He is, yes," he said, dipping a biscuit into his hot coffee. 

"It's strange how things ended up." 

Malfoy nodded. 

"Do you ever feel…?" He trailed off, not sure what he meant to say. But Malfoy seemed to understand anyhow. 

"Yeah. Yeah, most of the time. But, it is what it is, you see. I can't take anything back. Since then, I've…" he paused, "felt really stupid, but also - I mean, I don't know. It is what it is. If Ollivander, who was the victim, can move on, and you were the hero and you moved on, than I don't have any right to behave differently, do I? There's no other way to, ah," he looked embarrassed, "atone." 

He knew Malfoy was not the same person he had been during the war, but Harry didn't know quite who the new Malfoy was yet either. Still, it seemed like Malfoy's confidence should be repaid somehow. 

"I haven't actually moved on," he said, boldly, looking into Malfoy's eyes. 

"You haven't?" He looked startled, then his gaze slid away. "Nevermind, sorry. I thought-" He frowned. "I misunderstood." 

Harry shook his head. "No, not like that. I mean, I think I can forgive... some people. I just can't forget about the war, because now everything seems like," he waved his hands, "I don't know, like a game. Like it's not real or very important, because the war was bright colour and this is faded gray." 

Malfoy was looking at him very intensely now. "Yes," he said, "that's exactly what I feel too. This bookshop, it's so calm and peaceful, and for a long time after I came nothing every happened here. There's a studio above the shop, you know. I get up every day and come down here and then in the evening I go back up again. I even get groceries delivered; I don't ever have to leave if I don't want to. There are books for company, and…" He frowned, "it's peaceful, it's like a half-life, but I needed it. And then Ida came and now you've shown up, and it feels like the shop is sort of pushing me out, bit by bit. The world is still gray, though. It isn't clear cut, like back when I had to make the cupboard work, or my parents would die... what?" 

"Just," Harry said, "your white was my black." 

"Oh, it was my black too," Malfoy said, after a moment, "no doubt about that." 

He was getting up to leave, and Malfoy getting up to show him out, when Harry had a thought. 

"Would you like to go to this Saturday's match?" he asked. "We're playing the Cannons." Malfoy frowned, and looked on the point of refusing, so Harry pressed. "It'll be a good match, and I get free tickets on the upper tier." 

He was about to suggest dinner afterwards, but Malfoy said slowly, "would you mind inviting Ida as well? I think she'd enjoy it." 

It was not exactly what Harry had had in mind, but he agreed swiftly nevertheless. 

  


  


The day of the game the weather was ideal: not too cold and a little wind, the kind that sent whirlpools of bright leaves eddying with each gust. Harry enjoyed a game with wind, it made things a lunpredictable. He suited up and then waited for Draco by the entrance to the pitch, using one of those notice-me-not glamours to decrease the interest of the fans walking by: it was a strong charm, but it still didn't help much. 

They arrived a little early, Malfoy in his expensive, frayed coat, and Ida with a hat, and her hands in an enormous muff. She looked like a Victorian schoolgirl, and Harry couldn't help remembering her mother's equally dated costume when they had met. 

Her cheeks were rosy, and she stayed mostly quiet, but occasionally burst into short, excited rounds of questions. "How do I tell the beaters from the chasers? Do the balls ever come into the stands? What should I do if…?" 

Harry looked over her hand at Malfoy and smiled, but Malfoy seemed too preoccupied to notice. There were a lot of people watching them, and Malfoy was watching them back, nervously. Harry cast the charm again over the three of them, stronger this time, and led them towards his seats. 

Before they made it to the aisle, he saw a familiar orange head, and Weasley jumpers. Ron was waving at him frantically. 

"Harry! We've come to watch you play." Ron was wearing Chuddley colours, as he did for every match Harry played against them. Harry knew the moment that Ron caught sight of Draco and Ida, because his mouth dropped open. A hand clasp Ron's shoulder, and Harry saw that George was there as well. 

"We thought it'd be fun to see you get trounced, Harry," he said, agreeably, "hullo again, Malfoy." 

Malfoy had gone as pale as Peeves. 

Ida blinked innocently. "Are these friends of yours, Harry?" she asked. 

Harry recovered himself. "Yeah," he said, "Ida, these are my friends Ron and George. They run Weasley's Wizard Wheezes, perhaps you know it? " 

Ida nodded shyly. 

"Ron, George, you know Draco, and this is Ida Scryingstone." 

Ron nodded frantically. "Hermione's here too," George said after a pause. "She's just gone to get drinks." 

"Right." Malfoy still hadn't said anything, and Harry had to go to the locker room in another moment. He cast an anxious glance at George, who, thankfully, seemed to get the message and jumped in helpfully. 

"Malfoy, how's the - uh - bookshop doing?" 

"You knew about this?" Ron hissed frantically at his brother. 

They all decided diplomatically to ignore him. 

"It's fine," said Malfoy, after a pause, "very well, thank you. How about your place?" 

"Wheezes is good," George said, plowing on with forced joviality. "Business is great, isn't it Ron. Ida, you said your name was? Would you like to sit here next to me?" 

Harry spared Malfoy one apologetic look - Malfoy returned it with daggers - before rushing off to start the game. 

  


He kept his eye on them as much as he could throughout the first half of the game: though really that wasn't much. He caught a glimpse of Ida talking excitedly to Ron, and then another of Draco sitting stiffly, and tried to keep from worrying about it while his attention should have been on the snitch. 

At halftime, the players often flew around for a bit, chatting with the crowd. Harry caught sight of Ollie flirting with a good-looking young man in Cannon colors. Ollie liked a challenge, which other team's fans often provided better than his own. Harry shook hands with a three-year old that looked nearly asthmatic from delight, and was just angling towards his friends when Angelina flew up beside him and saw the direction he was looking. 

"Merlin, is that Draco Malfoy?" she asked.,"I thought he never left the Manor or something." She looked at Harry sideways. "Is that what's got you showing off today?" 

Harry gave her a look, which she blithely ignored. "Mind if I come say hello with you?" 

They came up to the stands just in time to hear George tell Ida somethin g complicated about historical changes to the scoring system. Ida was nodding intently.

"Harry!" She said, her cheeks bright-flushed, "that thing you did, with the falling, and the broom, that was wonderful!" 

Harry hadn't the slightest idea what she was talking about, but he thanked her anyway. A quick glance at Malfoy told him things seemed to be going alright - he looked about two notches keyed down from where he'd been when Harry had left him. He was sitting on Ida's other side, George comfortably wedged between them and Ron and Hermione. 

"Malfoy," Angelina said cockily, "long time no see. Are you going to come out here and let us kick your ass, after this is over?" 

Harry felt a moment of panic that quickly resided as Malfoy smirked, and shot back with, "just because I'm out of practice, sweetheart, doesn't mean Slytherin still wasn't the better team. I saw that backwards flyby you did on Charmsby; that was a classic Crabbe and Goyle move." 

Angelina threw back her head and roared outrageously. To Harry's surprise, George did too. "You caught that, did you?" she asked. 

"Only move your two clowns ever came up with that was strictly legal," George said, "I saw you do that too, Angelina, don't think I didn't notice." 

"The only one they thought of all on their own," Malfoy put in, quietly. "Frankly, it was all my strategies, back then, that tended to feature illegal bludger head-shots." He paused,"I had such visions of Potter getting concussed off his broom." 

"And they worked a few times, didn't they?" Angelina said, as Harry protested. 

"I remember that too," George said, "you were the world's worst little cheater." 

"But I was very good at it," Malfoy said smugly, and Angelina's howling grew louder. Finally, after struggling for a moment, she caught her breath. "Crabbe and Goyle were good opponents," she admitted, "kept us on our toes, more than anybody. And you and Fred, George, I swear, you two were the only ones who were meaner." 

She must have felt the barometer drop, for an instant Ron and Hermione, who had until then been involved in their own conversation, both stared at her. There was almost a collective sigh of relief as George, seeming not to have noticed the tension, responded. 

"We were." 

"I remember one time right after we started dating, he broke my leg during a pick-up game, and then couldn't figure out why I was so mad at him at dinner. Don't know why I thought he might go _easy_ on me, if anything he played even harder." 

"He always bragged about that," George said, "how tough you were. Said you were the only girl who could handle anything on the pitch." 

For a moment, their wistful smiles mirrored one another. Then the horn sounded, signaling five minutes to the start of the second half, and she and Harry came up on their brooms again. 

The second half ended up being a short one, as the snitch showed up in the odd corner right where the Harry was cruising, without Puddlemere's seeker or a bludger anywhere in sight. The roar of the crowd seemed a little hollow in Harry's ears - it was always the same, after all - until he looped around on the slow pass and saw Malfoy's face, looking half pleased and half regretful. 

He did a run-through of the locker-room, showering and changing at lightning speed, ignored the slightly smirky look Ollie gave him as he pulled on his jumper and hurried out the door. 

Ron, Hermione and George were waiting together with Malfoy and Ida, which Harry took as a good sign. Ida looked extremely excited, Malfoy anxious, Ron petulant, Hermione concerned, and George, unexpectedly, rather jolly. 

"Well", Hermione said, briskly. It was clear she'd decided to take charge of what she still considered to be an awkward situation. "That was very nice, Harry, a very good game." 

"A bit short," George put in. 

"Yes," said Harry, "well. The snitch appeared, so."  Ron snorted, and Harry realized that his annoyance might, in fact, be just about the game. "Had to cut it short," he went on, "a game like that, if we let it carry on, the Cannons would eventually get ahead on points." That was a patent lie, as an early snitch was the trick for a weaker team winning against a stronger one, and rarely vice-versa, but Ron perked noticeably anyway. "

The Cannons are very underrated." He proclaimed, as he had been ever since he was eight years old. Hermione rolled her eyes, Ida nodded as if soaking up his wisdom, and Malfoy, unexpectedly, nodded too. 

"They've had some very good players," he said. "Karlsberg is among the best in the league, only the coach doesn't seem to know how to use him." 

Harry was pretty sure Karlsberg was a blockhead, but as the comment seemed to mollify Ron still further, he decided to let it pass. 

"We've got to get back," Hermione said, "we promised to meet Molly and Arthur for dinner, and I'm sure you must get back too, but, ah, Malfoy, it was nice to see you again. And Ida, it was lovely to meet you." She looked at Harry significantly, and then back at Malfoy. "We're having dinner a week from Friday, just a few friends - perhaps you'd like to join us?" 

Malfoy froze, and then recovered. "Friday evenings are bad for me, I'm afraid." 

"Well, if you change your mind." She leaned up to give Harry a light kiss on the cheek, "it was good to see you play, Harry. See you Friday, if not before." 

"All right." 

He watched the three of them disapparate with mild amusement. Hermione had never, ever, invited any of Harry's boyfriends to one of their friendly dinners - not that he'd ever wanted to bring one - and so the fact that she had invited Malfoy when they weren't even - well, when it wasn't even sure yet - implied that she's greatly overestimated their intimacy. Or had she? He looked over at Malfoy. There was a strong wind, but his hair was too short even to be ruffled. It was a pity, Malfoy probably looked good with ruffled hair. Harry shook his head to clear his thoughts. It annoyed him a bit that he was, apparently, so transparent. 

"Ida's house-elf is collecting her from the shop," Malfoy said, "perhaps we should get back as well." 

"Ok, yeah." Harry placed a hand against Ida's back and against Malfoy's - the most contact they'd had, he recognized - and disapparated them to the front of the shop. It was dusk, and light from the closing stores on Diagon were golden against the darkening sky. A house-elf was there, waiting patiently by the stairs. 

"Dimpsy is come to take Miss Ida home," the elf said, bowing politely. 

Ida turned to Harry and Malfoy. "Thank you very much," she said, and then shyly added, to Harry, "and thank you for not minding about - me being a squib, you know." She looked embarrassed, and hurried hastily on, "and thank you for saying you'd go to my mom's benefit. She's really happy." 

"Oh." Harry didn't remember having made that promise, so he thought for a moment. "Do you want me to go?" he asked, "I thought you wouldn't care?" 

Ida looked at him owlishly. "I don't," she said, "but it makes Mom happy, and," she ducked her head, "she said I did a good job." 

The wistfulness in her voice made Harry remember his own childhood, at six and seven, far younger than Ida was now. There had been a time when he'd still believed that he could please the Dursleys if he did everything just right: made breakfast perfectly, vacuumed all the carpets and did all the laundry without spilling a drop of bleach. By the time he'd realized that their approval and affection would never come, he'd been old enough to trade in the frustration of Privet Drive for the excitement of Hogwarts. But the Dursleys had only been relatives, Petunia had never seemed like a mother, and perhaps that had made it easier to let go. 

"I'll be there if you will." 

"Deal." 

They looked at each other, smiling. Ida really was a nice girl, Harry thought. It was a shame that her Wizarding family didn't seem to fully appreciate her. Ida said good-bye to them again, and nodded to Dimpsy, and they disapparated in a quick crack of elf-magic. 

"Well," Harry said. "Er. I hope it was alright." 

Malfoy paused. "It was," he said, "under the circumstances... I was surprised how polite your friends were." 

"They're all right," Harry said. "They'll give you a chance," he paused, "you know, if you want them too." 

Malfoy shrugged, and didn't reply, so Harry blathered on. "We aren't scary, I promise."

Malfoy looked at him with an amused expression. "No, Potter, I wouldn't think so." 

"By the way, you can still call me Harry." 

Malfoy considered. "It sounds wrong." 

Harry frowned. "But I would really, really like to be able to call you Draco." He let his voice go a bit wheedling. Malfoy frowned at him, but then shrugged. "Fine, why not? Malfoy always reminds me of my father, anyhow." 

Harry grinned widely. "All right then. Draco-" 

"What?" Malfoy turned his peaky, perpetually irritated face towards Harry's, and Harry kissed it. 

It was quick and s oft. Malfoy stilled for a moment, and then kissed back, and Harry felt relief run through him. He tasted vaguely of apricots and his lips were cold and slightly chapped and he seemed curious, gently exploring the shape of Harry's lips with his own. Harry let him, and after a moment he brought his arms to wrap loosely around Malfoy's waist. Malfoy's hands came up and he noted that the jacket sleeves were still too short, and recalled as well that Malfoy wasn't wearing a scarf. 

The sun had fully set now and the street was rapidly growing darker, and with the darkness it seemed colder as well. Harry leaned in, intent on deepening the kiss, and pulling Draco closer, but like a regretful wind, Malfoy slipped away. They stood looked at each other silently, as if deciding who would speak first. 

Of course, it was Harry. "So, I'll see you - er - later?" 

Draco shrugged, and went into the shop. 

  


  


The next day he had practice - light, because of the match the day before- and in the evening there was Ida's mother's charity party. At practice, Harry had learned with great horror that Ida's mother had begun to spread rumors about the likely attendance of a certain celebrity guest. The whole team teased him about it, for it was the kind of dry event that usually drew a considerably older and purer-blooded crowd. Ollie told him it was sure to be terribly dull. 

  


Scryingstone House was a gray manor in a quiet wizarding neighborhood in inner London. It reminded Harry of what 12 Grimmauld Place would have been if the Blacks had taken a slightly saner and less depressing route over the last few generations: it was lush and well-appointed; every inch scrubbed gleaming clean by the house-elves. The portraits nodded their approval of the guests who passed by, and the atmosphere was lively: despite this, it did not seem like a warm house, it wasn't the kind of place he could imagine going to visit friends and being comfortable. 

The guests were led into a ball-room than had been magically resized to fit over a hundred. Tables had been arranged with complicated centerpieces, and a stage elevated in one corner. There would, Harry darkly suspected, be speeches. 

Dinner began almost immediately. He was placed next to a rich wizard who was in the process of running for a seat on the wizengamot. His wife spent most of an hour trying to convince him to support the husband in an upcoming political election, while her husband tucked into his food and pretended to be above the discussion. Harry suspected that they had paid for the privilege of his company. He ate his way through a very good nut-encrusted miniature roast sort of thing, as well as several courses of vegetables and something that he was pretty sure Molly Weasley would have labeled an aspic, while nodding and pretending to listen to them. He felt a wave of relief when the lights dimmed and the speeches began, for though these were very dull they at least did not require him to think up any more polite but noncommittal responses. 

After the speeches, it appeared, there would be dancing. As the tables were cleared and magically disapparated, several witches advanced on him with alarmingly predatory smiles. Harry looked around a bit frantically for an exit, and, luckily saw Ida in the corner of the room. She was wearing dark red velvet robes with lace that, despite the likely cost, looked totally mismatched to a girl of her age and complexion and made her look as gawky as Ron at the Yule ball. 

"I ate with the other children," she informed him gravely. She looked rather anxious, and Harry wondered if she had been teased. 

"Were you all right?" he asked. 

She gave a quick nod. "I know them all from before. I told them about the match and they were all jealous that I got to go," she looked quickly around and then leaned in, and said, in a theatrical whisper, "it's like they think squibs are retarded." 

Harry laughed in spite of himself, for Ida was the first breath of fresh air he'd had all evening. "It'll get better," he said, "don't worry. It always does." 

"I wish I could go to school," she frowned, "Mother says I can't go to a muggle one." 

Harry looked at her. From her dress robes to her pointed boots, Ida was every inch a pureblooded young witch - well, even if she wasn't a witch. "What's a text message?" he asked her on a whim, "what's a kebob?" 

She looked at him blankly, and he sighed. "Ida, I'm afraid your mother might actually be right - you'd be eaten alive at a muggle school." 

"I'd adjust," she said, stubbornly. Harry guessed it was an argument she'd made before. "Although," she added, regretfully, "It wouldn't be _ideal_ , would it? I mean, I couldn't talk about my family or my kneazel or- or Mont-Grimblings or anybody. I'd have to lie an awful lot." She bit her lip. "I'm not very good at lying." 

"Who," Harry asked, "Is Mont-Grimblings?"

Ida looked at him. "Oh, Harry," she sighed, "Mont-Grimblings is the most wonderful wizard authoress. She wrote _Dragons Beneath Us_ , and _The Unenchanted_. Draco says she's overrated, but Draco doesn't really appreciate that kind of story." She sighed again, "Her writing is so beautiful, and her stories are just - just - just wonderful! You never know who will live and who will die, and whether anyone will get their happy ending at all. I like that kind of book, Harry, don't you?" 

Harry nodded, rather lost amidst her sudden enthusiasm. "Harry, can I ask you something?" Ida became solemn again. 

"Of course." 

She looked around them. "Not here. Somewhere private. Come on." 

She led him towards a door at the back of the hall. It appeared locked. Ida clapped and said, "Dimpsy!"  The house-elf appeared. "Can you open the door for me?" 

Dimpsy bowed and unlocked the door. Ida went in. "Dimpsy is sort of my house-elf," she explained, "she's supposed to keep an eye on me, and help me with anything I can't manage. Here." It was a small foyer. "Harry," she asked, "can you do a privacy spell?" She seemed to hold her breath slightly as he cast it, watching the sparks fly from his wand. Harry wondered a bit about whether wandering off with his host's thirteen-year-old daughter might look inappropriate, so he made sure the door stayed open, so that they had a clear view of the ballroom, and vice-versa. 

"I'm sorry to bother you," Ida said, "but please promise you won't laugh, and that you won't tell anybody." 

"Of course." He hopted i t wasn't a love confession. Or what if it was a love-confession for Draco -

"I want to do magic," she said. 

"What?" 

"I want to do magic," Ida repeated, "so much. I mean, I know I'm a squib and it's impossible and Mother's told me a thousand times and they've done so many tests, but it's just… just," she faltered. "Do you know the other day, in the bookshop, the first time I saw you there? You touched the books and you said you could feel them. And I can feel them too! I know I can." She looked down at her feet, her usually-pale face bright red. "I know it's impossible, but every book is a little different. Mont-Grimblings is sunny and sharp, sort of prickling but in a good way. Andrews is pinkish, a little too sweet. Charlotte Brontë is always warm, but a bit as though she's trying to maintain a distance. Do you know? Is that how they felt for you too?" 

"I'm sorry," he had to admit, "but I've never felt those books properly." He looked into her anxious face and hastily re-assured her. "But I will, the next time I'm at the shop, alright?" 

"Alright," she said, "I know it's mad, but I just thought, that maybe if I could feel those books, it meant I might have a little magic - just a little. And then I could be a witch. My parents are wizards, on both sides, you know! For generations and generations. I thought maybe I had just a little bit. Draco says that the books love me more than anyone else, too." 

Harry felt badly. He could feel the magic in his body, thrumming, almost a bit too much as it always was these days. Sometimes he cast meaningless spells, just to burn enough off so that he could sleep. He could feel the magic in all the ancient structures around him, too, and the magic in all the people attending Ida's mother's party. He cast his inner eye on Ida for a moment and concentrated as hard as he could, looking for a spark of anything there. But it was empty. From that perspective, her body was as dull and empty as a piece of muggle furniture. 

"I don't know, Ida," he said, finally, not wanting to tell her that it was hopeless. "I'm glad you have the books, though. Even if you aren't in school, you probably know twice what I did at your age, with all that reading." 

Ida looked at him doubtfully.  "You will check the books, though, the next time you come?" s he made him promise.

  


  


"George isn't so good, these days." 

Malfoy looked at him in amazement. It was two days after the fundraiser, and Harry was sitting in the comfortable chair that he regularly lay claim too, sipping Draco's unexceptionable coffee and half dozing in the warm light. He'd maneuvered so that his chair sat smack in the middle of the one beam of sun from the store's grimy window. Harry remembered belatedly that George's secrets were not his to tell, and he backtracked hastily. 

" I mean, he spends a lot of time working. We'd like him to meet someone, but he goes through gloomy periods, and it takes awhile for women to get past that…" 

Malfoy nodded, still looking blank. 

"He'd resent me meddling," Harry stumbled awkwardly on, "but I've been trying to think of someone who might help him. You know, it has to be someone a bit tough, but also someone who _understands_. It isn't the same, you know, with people who weren't there for the war," he stopped, first because he was beginning to think that he was talking about himself rather than George, and second, because Malfoy was still looking at him strangely.  "It's just been on my mind, "Harry said defensively. "That's all." 

Before he had a chance to say more, the bell jangled noisily and Ida came in. As soon as she saw Harry, she took her coat off and began scrambling quietly around, finally coming to rest in front of him with a short stack of books. Draco looked bemused. 

"You didn't forget, did you?" she asked. She looked shyly at Draco. "Harry told me he'd tell me what my favorite books feel like." 

"They feel different?" Draco said, surprised. "To me they all just seem sort of warm." 

"Well, yeah," Harry said, embarrassed, and he took the volume off of the top of the stack. 

It was bound in faded gray fabric, soft and old, but upon lifting it he felt a mild frisson run up through his fingertip. It felt like the sun on his back at the beach, but also like a woman's hand running down his spine or biting into a piece of sharp cheese. The image that began to form in his mind was of a picnic on the shore, with a female companion who was older, kind, but would speak candidly: a woman with a sharp tongue. 

"Mont-Grimblings," he said, recalling Ida's description. 

"Yes," Ida agreed rapturously, "like grapes and summer, isn't she?" 

Draco looked at them both oddly. "

Feel this one," Ida said imperiously, thrusting another volume towards him. 

Placing Mont-Grimblings carefully aside, Harry took the second book. This one made no strong impression at first, but then it began to emerge, like a photo developing - a soft caramel in his mouth, sticky, washed down by sweetened tea - "Andrews," he said, flatly. 

"And Brontë?" It was a muggle book, he could tell by the magical signature, which was fainter than the others. The residual magic that clung to muggle books came from the wizard who had handled them, not the authors themselves, he recalled. Brontë was like... a breeze. It reached out, touched him, and then pulled away again. It was a woman who said too much in spite of herself, who tried to keep her distance but poured out her heart by mistake. 

Harry handed the book back to Ida, and watched as she cradled it. Her body was just as magic-less as ever, but when she held the book he felt, rather than saw, a faint spark. She hadn't been wrong, then. She did have magic. Whether it would be enough to ever cast a spell, though, was another matter. He thought for a moment that it might be crueler to give her hope - but Ida had already made her position clear, she wanted to try - so, with a quick side glance at Draco, Harry pulled his wand from his back pocket. 

He opened the volume of Brontë to a random page, and then tapped with his wand lightly on the upper-right hand corner of the page, a trick Hermione had taught him. Obediently, the page turned. He thrust his wand towards Ida. 

"Now you try." Gingerly she took the wand, and squared her shoulders, facing down the ragged copy of Villette as if it was her opponent in the gladiator's ring. She took a deep breath, and tapped. 

The page did not flutter. 

Biting her lip, Ida tapped again, and again there was nothing. 

Draco was looking at the proceedings as if he would like to intervene. Thinking for a moment, Harry took away the Brontë and replaced it with Mont-Grimblings.

"Don't think of it as something you are forcing the book to do," he told Ida, "Mont-Grimblings is your partner - the book _wants_ to be read. You're just asking it a favor." 

Still biting her lip, Ida nodded nervously, and clamped down harder on Harry's wand. Looking again at the book, she tapped the page. 

It didn't move, but Harry felt the faint stirrings of magic. He wasn't sure if it was Ida's power, or the book's. He had chosen Mont-Grimblings because it was, by far, the most magical of the three books Ida had shown him, as well as her favorite. A small success, anyway - if she kept practicing, she'd be able to do it. 

He looked down to realize that Ida was crying - tears streaming down her cheeks, and her face all crunched up as if she was fighting back sobs. Draco looked as if he was ready to hit him. 

"It didn't work," Ida cried. "It didn't work, Harry, I can't do it after all. I'm so stupid," her whole body was shaking. 

Quickly he reached around, putting his hands her shoulders. "No, Ida, no. You did great. It was there, I felt it. You only need to keep practicing." 

She stiffened and looked up at him, her eyes peeking through the loose fabric of his robe. "Really?" 

"Really. I'll give you my wand for the time I'm here. Keep trying." He ruffled her hair fondly. "Even the kids at Hogwarts can't do anything the first time, you know." 

She nodded, pale, and took up the book and his wand and scurried to her quiet place at the back of the store. Draco was still looking at Harry seriously. 

"You weren't lying to her, were you?" he hissed. 

Harry shook his head, and Draco let out a low sigh of relief. "Thank goodness." 

"I know," Harry said, "I'm not sure, I think it's the books here. As you said, they like her. I think they lend her their support." 

"So she-," Draco looked thoughtful, "she wouldn't be a full witch, then." 

"No," Harry sighed, "but a page-turning spell's better than nothing, right? It might give her some confidence in herself."

Draco looked pensive for another moment. "That thing you said before," he muttered, "what about your beater?" 

"What?" 

"Angelina," Draco said, "she seems to like George."

"Oh." Harry frowned. "She dated Fred, you know, for ages. Wouldn't it be…?" 

"Like you said," Draco said, and began to shuffle his pages, carefully not looking at Harry, "sometimes you need someone who understands things." 

Harry considered. "What if I invite her to dinner on Friday?" On an insane impulse he added, "would you join me?" 

Draco stiffened. "Absolutely not." 

"They _are_ nice, you saw that, they didn't bite. And we could see whether you're right or not." 

"No."

They bickered a bit more, until Draco claimed work and Harry decided to try his hand at the decidedly muggle coffee machine behind the counter. Soon he bollixed it up and Draco came to rescue him - or to rescue the machine from Harry, it was unclear - and finally did the whole thing for him. When Draco said coffee, Harry was learning, he often actually meant espresso, in this case a triple shot of it. He admired the way Draco's long fingers curled around the mug, and the white line of his neck, although all that short spiky hair still taunted him. 

"Why do you keep your hair so short?" he asked, finally, mostly to keep himself from reaching out and grooming the mess without permission. 

Draco twisted around to look at him, and snorted. "Why are you getting forty-galleon haircuts, I could ask?" 

"What?" Harry ran his hand over his head self-consciously. His haircuts were very expensive, but he liked to imagine that it was a subtle effect. 

Draco looked at him and shrugged, passing over the cup of coffee. "I'm still a Malfoy, remember? It's not that I pay attention to the cost of things, but I do know quality." 

Harry frowned. "I like it, anyway. There's nothing wrong with spending my own money how I like." 

"I didn't think there was." Draco sounded surprised, and Harry realized that he'd misjudged the comment. Usually with Hermione or Ron there was a bit of guilt layered in when they discussed how much he spent on things. 

"What about you, then? You could grow your hair a little longer, if you wanted to." 

"I don't." Draco looked at him piercingly, and then shrugged. "It's easier, less work." 

He felt lost, not quite knowing what to say. It felt nice, companionable, to be nearly bickering as they were - Draco still seemed ill at ease, and yet there was no feeling of rejection - just a quiet, rather slow, feeling out of things. And yet he felt a frission of sexual tension when they looked at each other, dancing just beneath the surface, that was slowly rising. That faint kiss from before was still in his mind, and he wondered when they might repeat it. 

Draco was looking at him with a mildly exasperated expression. "You look like you're thinking too hard." 

"What? Why?" 

He reached across the table and ran his hand over Harry's, teasingly. "Thinking isn't a good look for you, Potter." He glared a Harry for a moment, and Harry realized it was a joke, sort of. He tried to catch Draco's hand, before it drew back, but missed. 

"Who would have thought you'd end up a bookworm?" 

Malfoy laughed,  "I did read before, you know." 

"Never realized it." Malfoy pouted. "Well, it's true I didn't have the passion of Madame Pince, initially. But it's something, isn't it, and there wasn't anything I wanted to be doing more." 

"That sounds like how I talk about quidditch." 

"Hmmm," Draco looked thoughtful. "You don't care for quidditch anymore?" 

"No, I still do," Harry said. "It's just that doing it as a job," he frowned and mumbled, "it isn't what I expected." 

They looked at each other. "Well," said Draco, eventually, "nothing ever is, is it?" 

"Harry! Draco, look!" Ida rushed towards them, pushed the book onto the table, gave a deep breath, and tapped once with Harry's wand. "Look, I've done it." And, miraculously, the page floated over. 

"It's magic," she pronounced in a whispery voice. Harry grinned with pride, and Draco looked as wondering, inexplicably, as a small muggle-borne child on his first day at Hogwarts. 

  


She managed it again another four times before evening, when her house-elf arrived to take her home. She waved cheerfully to Harry and Draco as she left, although Harry detected the tell-tale droop of her shoulders. Learning a new spell was often somewhat tiring. 

"I won't tell my parents," she informed them,"I'm going to practice first; it's going to be my secret." 

They were left looking at the empty spot from which she'd disapparated. The sun was close to setting and so the store, which took its cues for lightening from the sky even if there were no windows, had bathed its books in a warm orange glow. 

"Would you like to have dinner?" Draco asked. "I have some chicken and pasta. No house-elves, but I can still manage a spell to boil water..." 

"That sounds great." 

He followed Draco through the back room and up a flight of narrow stairs. Draco took off his worn outer robe, hanging it on the wall. He wore gray trousers and a white shirt beneath, not unlike their old Hogwart's uniform. Harry hung up his own cloak beside and allowed himself a moment of sentimental admiration for the way the two garments looked next to each other on the rack. 

Despite the expansive feeling of the bookstore, the flat above it felt small and empty: beige walls, little furniture, and no decorations on the wall. 

Draco must have seen Harry's look, because he flushed. 

"I always thought it would be temporary," he said, by way of explanation. 

Harry thought of his own bachelor pad, filled full of things he didn't care about at all: a leather sofa and a flat-screen tv to impress the muggle-borns, an expensive talking mirror, and a bedroom ceiling that shifted to show the seasons that he rarely remembered to look at. 

"I don't care," he said honestly. Something a little raw must have crept into his voice, for Draco looked convinced, and leaned in to kiss him. It was firmer then their first had been, less exploratory, more insistent. Harry noted vaguely that Draco now tasted like stale coffee, but that it was not unpleasant. He probably tasted much the same himself. Draco's mouth was pink and warm, his eyes bright, Harry kissed him more urgently than before. When Draco tried to pull back he pushed forward, until Draco was up against the wall. Draco moaned, and brought his arm up to run down Harry's flank, and Harry felt himself hardening. He pulled Draco as close as he could, dragging him forward by the pockets to grind their bodies together. Draco grinned, and kissed him once more, hard, before sliding away. 

Harry followed him, a bit sulky, to the kitchen area, admiring the way Draco's bum moved under the thin fabric of the worn pants. He wondered if he could convince Draco to skip dinner entirely, but just then Draco's stomach rumbled, and he put the idea aside. 

He watched Draco take down an old, battered looking cauldron, placing it on a gas range that seemed scarcely built to handle its weight. He added water from the sink, but lit the range with the tip of his wand, a curious blend of wizard and muggle techniques. 

While the pasta boiled, Draco heated sauce from a jar, and fried a chicken breast in very little oil. It did not look like a very appealing meal, and part of Harry- a conflicted part, for he had largely ceased to cook after his last summer with the Dursleys, associating it too much with forced labor - longed to take the utensils away from Draco and improve on things. Instead, he bit his tongue, and watched only, and made occasional, unrelated comments. 

When the pasta was nearly done Draco drained it, insufficiently, and then dumped the sauce over to make a watery mess. Even between the two of them, it looked enough food for two or three meals, and he wondered uneasily if Draco lived only on some combination of starchy reheated pasta and coffee. 

"I've got some wine here somewhere, let me look for it." 

He followed Draco back down the apartment's hallway and into the bedroom. It was an anticlimactic moment, as washed-out and unappealing as the rest of the place. Next time, Harry vowed, he would make sure they ended up at his apartment. 

Draco sank to his knees, and rummaged under the bed. After few moments he emerged, looking victorious with a shoebox and dust in his hair. Harry bit back a laugh, for he looked like a dusty, fluffy, baby bird, and sank down beside him. 

Draco took a chest the size of a walnut from the shoebox, placed it on the ground, cleared some space around and then waved his wand at it, instructing it to grow. Harry saw how his hand trembled. The box remained unmoving. Draco frowned, and tried again. 

"Let me do it," said Harry. 

"No," Draco snapped. Then he mellowed. "It wouldn't work for you anyhow, it's a family spell." He steadied his hand and cast the spell a third time, and this time it took. The trunk expanded, steadily, to a large size. Malfoy worked his way through a series of charmed locks, and again, it took him several tries. Finally, the last clasp sprang open. Draco was breathing heavily, his face flushed. He didn't look at Harry. 

"That was a little harder than the last time I tried it," he said finally. 

Harry put his hand over Draco's. "So, what's inside, anyway?" 

"Oh, that," Draco lifted the lid, "relics of Malfoy Manor." 

Harry peered inside. There were, in fact, only wine bottles, packed with layers of burlap between them, reaching down far deeper than the bottom of the trunk. Harry could not even see the end of them. He took a bottle from the top, read the label, and gasped softly. 

"Is this the whole cellar?" 

"Hardly," Draco drawled, "just a few bottles, what I cleared out before the auction. I tried to get the expensive stuff, whatever would annoy the thieves at the Ministry most." He shrugged. "Don't know what happened to the rest of it." 

"You could sell them," Harry suggested. 

"I tried once, but no one was buying then, not even for a 1977 Srebon. Nowadays, though, I prefer my pride." Draco straightened. "What do you have there, a Chardonnay? We can do better. He frowned, removing about a dozen bottles before finding what he wanted. "Here, a Carde-Grecotto. That should definitely stand up to the pasta." Carefully they packed the bottles back away again. Harry was slightly relieved when the locks on the trunk closed by themselves as the lid was shut, and when Draco shrank it again on his first effort. 

There was no table so they ate the spaghetti from chipped plates on their knees while they sat on Draco's sagging couch, along with the wine that was probably a hundred galleons too good of an accompaniment. Harry enjoyed the tingling warmth it sent though him, allowing the tension in his arms and legs to fade out, apparently, through the hard springs of the couch beneath him. Neither of them, it appeared, was in the mood to talk much. The wine left Harry warm and relaxed down to his toes, a sensation only slightly counteracted by the presence of Malfoy's lithe body so close next to him. He found himself stroking Malfoy's leg almost lazily, which caused Draco to look at him. But the expression in Draco's gray eyes was far less mellow, and Harry felt his blood rising immediately in response. When they leaned in to kiss each other next, there was nothing gentle about it at all; it was fierce, urgent, expressive. Harry had a sudden mental image of themselves, in the past- times when they'd raced each other neck and neck for the snitch, when the wind whistling in their ears- times when they'd fought, the satisfying weight of his fist connecting against Malfoy's jaw; Draco, fourteen or fifteen, over him, knees pressed against his outer thighs for leverage as he tried to break Harry's collar-bone. And suddenly he saw them as they were at that moment, on the couch: Malfoy was struggling with his buttons, simultaneously kissing Harry and half cursing under his breath, and it suddenly seemed to him telling that they'd never been able to keep their cool around each other, that every time they'd physically connected, it had been charged, one way or another, with emotion. 

He shrugged his way out of the shirt that was giving Malfoy so many problems, used his weight abruptly to shift their positions and get Malfoy under him. His head banged, unfortunately, against the stupid end of the short couch. Harry spent an instant wondering if it would be worth it to scramble for his wand, extend the couch into something more comfortable, but in the same moment the near-growl of Malfoy under him - Malfoy understanding, but fighting, Harry's attempt to exert control - caused him to lose track of the idea. Draco pushed up to kiss him, hard, in the same moment twisting his pelvis beneath him; they nearly toppled off the couch, the wine bottle and silverware rattled alarmingly as Harry's leg hit the table next to them. It was so laughable that Harry pulled back, for a moment, to pant for breath. The sight of Draco spread out under him, pink-lipped and panting as well - he could feel his erection, and rolled against it to make Draco squirm - was the sudden fulfillment of a teenaged fantasy Harry hadn't even consciously admitted until that moment. Malfoy tried to pull him down again, but he held the hand off, wanting a moment more to appreciate the view. How teenaged Malfoy would hate him now, he thought, irrationally. And what would his own teenaged self have thought? 

Draco seemed more uncertain as the gap lengthened. Did he wonder if Harry was having second thoughts? His eyes were so blown that they were black, the merest silver ring outlining them, and Harry wondered something for a moment about the color of those eyes, the silver seemed almost to glow. Apparently frustrate by the pace, he was stroking Harry's sides, and stomach, curious and tactile. Something occurred to Harry that probably should have crossed his mind earlier. 

"Have you done this before?" he asked. 

Draco looked up at him, both annoyed and defensive, and Harry knew the answer before he opened his mouth. He was surprised by the rush of possessiveness that ran through him, the pleasure of knowing he got to be Malfoy's _first_. 

"Does it matter, Potter?" he asked. He was embarrassed; Harry could see, even if the flush on Draco's face looked more like passion. 

"Of course," Harry replied, teasingly. "We'll have to stop now. For a deflowering, we'll need to get some roses petals, and, at very least," - for Draco's stupid couch really was starting to annoy him, "a bed". 

"Fuck you," Draco said. Then he smirked suddenly, and Harry realized why a moment later, as Draco's hands slid lower, teasingly trailing over Harry's jeans-covered cock. Harry gasped and bit his lip, and struggled for a moment to take control of himself. Draco really wasn't much for the blushing virgin routine, Harry decided, in fact, he was shit at it. He wished fleetingly for a moment he could disapparate them back to his bed, in his flat - he would have risked the splinching that apparition during sex was rumored to cause, but not the nausea. 

Instead, he snagged the end of Draco's t-shirt, pulling Draco up enough that it could be pulled over his head, and kissing him teasingly as the shirt came off. Draco managed to distract him with the kiss a few minutes more, and then they managed to untangle their limbs long enough to move them to Draco's bed, which was a twin, and only slightly better than the couch. 

"I was busy," Draco whined. "There was this - ah! - war. Then a couple of trials, maybe you remember those. Then nobody wanted to talk to me." 

Harry grinned and kissed his neck, and used his free hand to get Draco's jeans unbuttoned and slide his hand teasingly inside. The feel of Draco's cock, straining inside his underpants, almost sent him over the edge, as did the increasingly desperate way Draco was rocking against his hand. "Oh, fuck", Harry murmured, feeling Draco's own hands working at his belt, and kissed Draco's neck, frantically, and murmured his name, and worked with his one hand at tugging at Draco's jeans while working his with the other. 

A few moments later Harry felt Draco spasm in his arms, and then he came messily in Harry's hand. He enjoyed the feeling of Draco's body relaxing, and the little huff he let out, and he pulled himself up enough to look down at those wide gray eyes. 

"Oh my God," Draco said. "You're grinning like an idiot." 

"Are you trying to be snarky now?" Harry teased, and then whined, unable to control himself, as Draco trailed a finger from up his groin. "Merlin, your belt is complicated," Draco frowned, finally getting it undone. He opened Harry's pants with a hard yank, seemingly fascinated by the way Harry's cock sprang out, strainingly hard and leaking. 

Draco, as if fascinated, put a hand forward, with just a finger extended. As Harry held the base, Draco ran the finger along rim of his cock, and touched it to the top, where precum was already leaking out, and drew it, achingly, from top to bottom, until his hand overlapped Harry's own and then took the base away from him, and finally grasping it firmly. He gave some firm, steady strokes that sent the blood rushing from Harry's head, leaving him lightheaded and sagging. 

"Oh my God," he said, "oh my god, do that harder." Draco smiled and kissed his sweaty neck, and strengthened his strokes until in another few moments Harry was coming, great ropes of it. Their bodies were so close together than most of it fell on Draco's bare chest. They both stood panting for a moment, and then Harry reached out and touched Draco's abdomen carefully, tracing the pattern of the come in fascination. Draco looked sweaty and disheveled and thoroughly shagged, and he was sure that he must look the same, and it felt wonderful to be resting there against him. 

"Merlin," he gasped, collapsing next to Draco, their bodies pressed together and legs intertwined so as to fit on his narrow bed, "that was brilliant." 

Draco laughed. They lay like that a few minutes until he said, "blech", and then stretched, cat-like, his hands above his legs and his back arched, and pushed himself up off the bed. Harry watched, lazily, as he kicked his trousers and pants off, unselfconsciously. Draco's cock was rosy, Harry regretted having missed the chance to see it hard. 

"I'm going to shower." Draco said. He cocked his head, a bit uncertainly. "Want to join me?" Harry grinned, and followed him, shucking the last of his clothing on the floor. It was, like the bed, too small a shower to be comfortable in. But they made do.

  


It was as if a world had opened up. His physical awareness of Draco became so intense that it was all he thought about during practice - now everyone, not just Ollie, noticed that he was distracted - and as soon as he possibly could he was throwing off his leathers and hurrying to Diagon Alley. When he came into the bookshop and Ida was there they just stared at each other, smiling, enjoying the sideways glances and snarky comments that passed between them until Ida's house-elf came to pick her up that evening, and then practically before the crack of the elf's apparition he would had Draco up on the counter, kissing and touching, enjoying the magical and non-magical energy produced wherever their bare skin touched, rubbing his hand along Draco's short-shorn hair and wishing it was longer. Obviously neither of them usually lasted very long. Harry suspected it would be awhile before their pace became less frantic, although he planned to enjoy slower and more languorous sex, too, when the time came around for that. 

One evening as they were resting on Draco's narrow bed - and Harry kept swearing to himself that he would transfigure it later - Draco told him that Ollivander's monthly visit, when he came in from wherever he stayed most of the time, and checked Draco's books, and paid the rent on the shop, would be later in the week. 

Luckily Harry had no practice that morning, so he made sure to arrive early. Ida came in only a little later, and Harry amused himself by watching Draco drinking coffee and watching Ida. She had begged Harry's wand from him as soon as she arrived, and had turned as many pages with it as she could before growing tired and switching back to the old-fashioned way. 

When the bell on the door rang, both Harry and Draco shot up, so that they were standing awkwardly as Ollivander came in. He hung his hat on the stand by the door, and looked them over. 

"Draco. Harry, how nice to see you again." He said. 

"We want to talk to you," Draco said abruptly. 

Ollivander followed them into the back office. Draco flicked his wand towards the door, to cast a privacy spell. Harry sighed with relief when it worked. Ollivander looked back and forth between them. 

"Gentleman, what can I do for you?" 

"It's Ida," Harry hastily explained, and then he and Draco were both talking at once, trying to explain what had happened with Harry's wand, the apparent magic from the bookshop, and her newfound ability to turn pages. 

"Well," Ollivander said, scratching his sideburn thoughtfully as they finished. "That is very interesting. And you want me to… make her a wand, I assume." 

Draco bit his lip and nodded. 

"You know that I don't do this frequently," Ollivander looked at them shrewdly. "She may need an unusual core material, it might not be easy figure out what would work for her." 

"It would mean a lot to her," Harry said. "We can spend some time, if you need to look around for the best core or the best wood. I don't think there's another wand-maker alive today who could do it," he added. 

Ollivander's eyes softened, with that; Harry remembered that he had always been somewhat susceptible to sincere flattery. 

"Well," he said. "Let me see." 

He came back the next day with a box full of old tools, recently cleaned to shining - although he continued to grumble that he had largely given up on wand-making since the beginning of the war. Harry worried that they were giving Ida false hope. Ollivander watched the way she worked with Harry's wand, tested her response to a number of materials, and then went away again, muttering to himself, and telling them not to bother him for at least fortnight while he researched some things. 

  


"Do you remember what you said before?" he asked Draco, "I asked Angelina if she wanted to come to one of Hannah's dinners." 

Draco looked up from his crossword. His expression was aiming for uninterested, but Harry made a little leer and it faltered halfway through. 

"What did she say?" 

"Only if you were going too," Harry grinned, "of course I told her that you were." 

He grimaced. "Lies, Potter." 

"Oh, come on. Even if it's a total disaster, at least this way you won't be the center of attention." 

"I enjoy being the center of attention, Potter," Draco said, haughtily, and then he grinned to show he was joking. "Yeah, ok. I must be mad, but why not?" 

  


Hannah outdid herself with a deep lasagna that got passed back forth across the table for seconds and then thirds, until the pan was scraped bare. Angelina wore a deep purple dress that made her look amazing, and she and George, seated together, fell into such easy conversation right away, and then spent the whole night with their heads bent together. It was clear that his and Draco's idea might work, and Harry felt both pleased and relieved about it. Meanwhile, Draco, beside him, argued about political things with Hermione, and quidditch with Ron. He became more animated as the night went on, and Harry was reminded of the boy he went to school with - both in his ability to charm people (although that side of him had rarely been on display for the Gryffindors) and in his enthusiasm for winning arguments. 

At one point in the evening Harry looked across the table and caught Hannah's eye. When she nodded subtly at Draco, and smiled, Harry felt himself smiling back contagiously. Instead of feeling annoyed at his friend's insistence on poking their noses into his love life, for once it felt right. 

By the time they finally left the Leaky it was growing very cold. Harry cast a warming charm on himself automatically, before remembering Draco's bad hand. "Do you want one?" He asked awkwardly, "warming charm?" 

Draco looked at him, frowned, looked away and then nodded. 

They would have looked odd to muggles, Harry imagined, walking back down the alley with their coats open and not even fog on their breaths. When he took Draco's hand, it felt comfortable, not confining. And when they reached the front of the store, Draco held the door open, and he followed Draco in, forgetting to wait for an invitation. But from the way Draco was looking at him, as they headed up the stairs, Harry thought that he didn't mind. 

  


The next morning he woke very early, probably uneasy because his subconscious had remembered that it was a morning practice day and that he had never set an alarm spell the night before. When he pulled himself upright, he found that Malfoy was sprawled next to him, face-up and snoring very gently, and that his hair had grown two or three inches during the night. It now fanned around his face, a straight and golden aureole. 

Harry grimaced. Things like that had happened once or twice before when he was emotional. Sometimes his magic did what he wanted, instead of what he told it to do; a form of spellcasting that was both wandless and unintended. The tricky thing was, though, that when he cast spells in that peculiar manner there was no counter-spell, no easy way to reverse it. 

Sighing, he leaned over and touched Draco lightly on the shoulder. The gray eyes opened, morning-hazy, and Draco stretched. 

"Sorry," Harry said, "I've got to go. I've got practice." He leant in quickly and kissed him. "I'll come by in the afternoon, alright?" 

"Awright," Draco mumbled, and rolled over. 

Harry decided not to mention about the hair. Getting out of the apartment was the reverse process of the night before - moving from the bedroom to the hallway to the bathroom, gathering up his clothing as he went, until finally finishing with the t-shirt in the living room and a quick spell to freshen everything up, before disapparating out.

  


He arrived back at the shop, after a whole day of distracted practice, and was startled to see that Draco's hair had grown nearly to his shoulders. He had pulled it back, though, into a viciously tight pony tail. 

Draco scowled at him when he came in. "Do you think this is funny, Potter? Because I certainly do not remember giving you permission to-" 

Harry hurried to meet him and was on the verge of kissing him before he realized that Ida was there, from her corner watching them both avidly. 

"It was an accident," he said sheepishly, scratching his head, and tried to explain about his magic. Malfoy looked mildly skeptical, but Ida was entranced, and her presence lightened the situation. "Besides," Harry said, reaching out to touch- Draco slapped his hand away, "it would look good if you let it down." 

"He cut it awhile ago," Ida put forth, "with paper scissors. It only grew back, though. I think it looks very pretty." She and Harry nodded at each other in collusion, and Draco scowled but then put his hands up and went to brew coffee.  "Harry, are you two dating now?" Ida asked, folding her book shut and coming to sit beside Harry at the counter. 

"No," said Draco, in the same moment Harry said "Yes." 

"Well, maybe we are." Draco amended, "If you fix my hair." 

Harry apologized and promised to do his best. He settled into the chair that was fast becoming 'his', and Ida slid in beside him, "What are you reading now?" He asked her. 

"Nabokov." 

"That sounds," he fumbled, "vaguely familiar." 

Draco frowned and disappeared unti the back room to do his inventory. When he came back again a while later, he seemed to have calmed down.

"Has it stopped growing then?" Harry asked. 

"Yes, finally."

"You could probably cut it, then," Harry admitted, "it's wild magic -probably all worn off."

"Thank Merlin." He had hoped Draco might say that he would keep it, but instead Malfoy was already rummaging in the counter drawers for a pair of scissors. Harry watched with dismay as he began to cut his hair, inches falling as Draco leaned over the bin. His fingers itched to cast the spell again, but he restrained himself, since Draco might never forgive him. 

When he was finished he looked at Harry and said. "My father." 

"What?"

"It's one of those things," Draco went on, "that has no real meaning, but which you find yourself absolutely desperate about anyway. When it's long, it almost feels as though my scalp is itching. Reminds me of how my father looked." 

Draco's hair, Harry thought stubbornly, looked nothing like Lucius'. He supposed that wasn't really the point, but it didn't prevent his mind from plotting ways to get Draco to see things differently.  He wanted to be able to fist his hands into it when they were in bed together, preferably while Draco was gasping. 

Some of what he was thinking must have showed through on his face, for Draco had gone rather red. "You're staring at me," he muttered. 

Harry blushed. "It looks like a bird's nest," he grumbled,"you didn't even use a mirror. Come here and give me those." 

Draco walked over, holding the scissors out with one hand, and Harry took them and stood up. 

"Sit." He walked around behind, looking at his head from all angles. In some places it was still too long, in others short and spiky. "We need one of those muggle razors," he said, "or one of those spells, Molly knows them. As it is, though, I suppose any mistakes I make I can just grow back again." 

He snipped carefully, rounding out the back and the bits around Draco's ears. Draco's breathing grew shallow, and Harry watched as the small bits of hair fell onto the nape of his neck, some falling under his shirt. 

"It itches," Draco complained, and Harry laughed. It was hard to get the sides exactly the same but once the scissors weren't a fine enough touch, he pulled out his wand and used it to gently even things more. If Draco disliked the feeling of a wand so close behind his ear, he didn't show it, he leaned back and let Harry spell away the bits of fallen fuzz. 

After a while, Harry stood back to survey his work. Draco looked gravely back at him, although a hint of smile played around his lips. It did look much worse than before, he decide - at least, no worse than a Molly Weasley special. It was perhaps a bit longer than it had been. He reached out to touch it, and was surprised when Draco arched under his touch, feline. 

  


  


During Ollivander's absence, Ida was so anxious that it set both Harry and Draco on edge, for instead of reading quietly in the corner she flittered from one end of the space to another, like a small bird, chattering endlessly about everything. 

B ut then finally he reappeared, looking slightly wild, to press into Ida's hands a wand an outwardly plain magnolia wand, possessing a core of phoenix feather, dipped in ink and wrapped in parchment. Harry could feel the rush of magic that settled over her, gathered from every book in the room, as she properly took hold of it: as if the bookstore itself had inhaled deeply. By the end of the day she'd learned to transfigure a feather, and although her power dwindled the farther she moved from the books - did not work at all, in fact, when she was outside of the shop - it was enough, at least, to allow her the basic pleasures of magic. 

"I wonder," Ollivander said, later over tea, "if she won't end up running this place one day." 

"When she's older, perhaps" Draco said, calmly, "if she wants too. I don't think this place could ever belong to anyone, the way it's hers." 

"Is that right?" Harry was surprised. 

Draco paused. "I've been thinking I might try something else for awhile." 

"Such as…?" 

"I don't know yet. But I was thinking-" He frowned, "I've got an appointment with someone at St. Mungo's, on Monday. She specializes in injuries related to the war, things related to magic." He gestured vaguely at his bad hand. Harry felt something in his own chest lift. 

"Good," he said. "You deserve it. I mean-" he didn't want to embarrass Draco by saying what he had been about to - that he was afraid that Draco had been punishing himself, by not getting the injury attended too, and that there was no need for him to do that. 

Harry thought of his own, long-delayed plans to join the Aurors. He was increasingly unsure that that was what he wanted, but that didn't mean a change wasn't in order for him too. That lack of certainty in his life had seemed depressing for a while, but now with Draco beside him it felt like an opportunity instead. 

"Let's take a trip," he heard himself saying. "Let's just go somewhere and explore, do something different." He looked at Draco, and smiled, and felt his heart lift again when Draco smiled back.

Ollivander cleared his throat. "Luna claims that the Amazon is lovely, this time of year." Draco snickered, and Harry found himself laughing too. 

"Maybe," he said. "Maybe. For now, let's just see where things go."


End file.
